Doing It Again
by Empathist
Summary: Set in a couple of years' time. Brendan is released from prison and is reunited with Ste.
1. Chapter 1

"He ain't coming."

"What?" Cheryl is distracted by her reflection. "Bloody wind."

The foyer they're standing in is brightly lit, and the darkness outside has turned the windows into mirrors. She fiddles with the wisps that were blown loose from the arrangement of her hair in the short dash from car to building.

"He ain't coming," her brother repeats.

"Who? Who's not coming?"

"Who d'you think? Should'a been here by now, shouldn't he. He ain't coming. Little..." Little bastard.

"You talking about _Ste_?"

"Steven. Yeah."

There's only one other person in this room, but Cheryl steers Brendan off into a corner so they won't be overheard. Is he serious?

"For god's sake, Brendan, don't talk daft. Why wouldn't he come?"

"Dunno. Cos... How do I know what goes on in his head, huh? I dunno, maybe he... maybe he's punishing me, you know? Maybe it's revenge, yeah, and all of this, it's been – "

"Punishing you for what? Oh, Bren, what have you done now? You haven't..?"

Brendan looks at her. What – does she think he's hit Steven? Is that what she's thinking?

"I've done nothing, Chez. Jesus."

His tie feels like a noose. He tugs at it but the knot only tightens, so he scrabbles at it with his fingers until it unties, and then he undoes the top two buttons of his white shirt. He twists the tie in both his hands, his knuckles whitening, until Cheryl tuts at him.

"Give it here, for god's sake Bren." He hands it over and she rolls it up and stuffs it into her handbag. "Look, why don't you phone him?"

"And say what?" Fuck it. "Let's go, Chez, I ain't standing here waiting if he's – "

"Look." Cheryl touches Brendan's arm.

The windows light up momentarily in the glare of headlamps as a car turns and pulls up outside.

* * *

_~ Four months earlier _

_Brendan_

Today I said Steven's name out loud for the first time in months.

My sister doesn't mention him any more. She used to when she first started coming to see me, after they lifted the ban on her visiting – she was the key witness so they made her stay away at first. When she came, she told me Steven had been over to stay with her in Ireland for a couple of weeks after it all happened, just to get away from the memories, I guess, and maybe because he wanted to be with people who knew the truth about what I'd done and what I hadn't. Steven liked it, Cheryl said, over there. I asked her, how _was_ he, though? _How was he?_ And all she said was, he'd been quiet.

Quiet: that's not like him. He can talk the back leg off a donkey, that boy, so when he's quiet, it's... it ain't right.

I used to ask Cheryl, in her visits or over the phone, after she'd given me the craic on her and Nate: I used to ask her, _The kids okay?_ And she'd tell me whatever news she'd got. She keeps in touch with them, see, and Eileen has no choice in the matter, because when I sold my club I put a whole load of money in trust for Declan and Padraig, and made Cheryl and Nate trustees alongside Eileen. So she has to play nice or she'll be outvoted: I know what my ex wife is like with money, how it slips through her fingers, and it's meant for my sons and not for her. It's the one thing I can do for my kids.

Then after I'd asked, _The kids okay?_ I used to ask, _Everyone else?_ And it was code. Cheryl knew it and I knew it: _Everyone else_ was Steven. There was no one else. And back in the early months, maybe the first year or so, Cheryl would have news to tell me from her chats with Steven on the phone. Big news, news I couldn't get my head around. Steven's mum had died, and then a while later, his dad had come out of the woodwork – I started sweating, thinking it was the stepdad who knocked him about when he was a kid, but it wasn't, apparently. Apparently it was his real dad; apparently he was a good guy, but still the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, because there was next to nothing that Steven had told Cheryl about this oh-so-interested-all-of-a-sudden father, and I wondered why the fuck not. And then there was more news, more relatives he had from this long lost daddy, and so instead of being on his own, Steven had a family of half sisters he never knew he had. That was good. It is – it _is_ good, that he's got someone to look out for him now. He got Leah and Lucas back, too; permanent or not, at least he wasn't cut off from them any more.

Seems like I was right about Steven being better off without me.

Then _Everyone else?_ stopped yielding any news; Chez would say, _Spoke to Ste, he's doing okay_, but then she would go on to the next thing. And then the next time, there was nothing about Steven but straight on to the next thing, and so I guessed. I guessed he had moved on, he'd got himself a boyfriend who meant something to him, and my sister was too scared to tell me. So I've stopped asking, _Everyone else?_ in case I get an answer.

Just because I don't ask any more – just because I never hear his name and never say it either – it doesn't mean he's not in my head every day, because he is. He is the first thought in my head when I wake up in the morning, and I go to sleep thinking about him, and then he is in my dreams.

Today I said his name, though. I said it to Cheryl over the phone just before the call time ran out.

"If you talk to him," I said to her, "You know, if... if you talk to Steven, promise me you won't tell him I'm getting out. Promise me."

There was a pause, and I thought maybe she was going to say she'd already told him – I thought maybe she and Steven had talked about me, said my name to each other – but then she said, "He might hear about it anyway, Bren. What if it's in the papers?"

"It won't be in the papers. He don't read the papers anyways, so."

I remembered him in the mornings when we sat at that two-man table in the flat with our breakfast and our coffee, and I'd be reading the paper and he'd be talking like he was in a competition with the Chester Herald for my attention. If he was a cat, he'd have stalked over and sat his furry backside on the page I was looking at till I gave in and scratched his chin for him. I figured out that the only way I'd get to read it was to read it out to him, you know, the news stories or whatever, and he was interested then. But if it was my turn to do the washing up and I got up from the table and left the paper for him, he never touched it; he never read voluntarily, except to the kids.

The fact is, it wasn't much in the papers in the first place. Some of them sniffed around when it first happened, my solicitor said, when they got the whispers that a serial killer had been caught, but when it turned out there was only one murder, and my guilty plea meant there didn't have to be a trial, they found juicier meat to feed on and left mine alone.

One murder. Yeah.

It took me a few days to decide to fight – a few days when I exercised my right to remain silent, just to give me time to think. I don't know, maybe I was in shock, but for those few days I genuinely considered lying down and taking it. Dying of old age after decades in prison wasn't what I'd had in mind when I made my confession – what I'd had in mind was going out in a hail of bullets like Butch and Sundance – but I knew I deserved it, not for what I'd done to Danny and Mick and Walker and my nana, but for what I'd done to... to other people. In the end, though, I didn't have the balls to face a lifetime inside. Believe me, when you're looking at never seeing the light of day again, if there's any chance you can get away with just one conviction and a fifteen year stretch, you'd have to be a better man than me not to take it. I've changed, sure I have, but I ain't stupid.

Fifteen years: I wouldn't yet be fifty, and he'd –

They tried, the police did, I'll give them that. Questioned me and questioned me, and came back and questioned me some more. They wanted to know why I'd stood on the balcony of Chez Chez and confessed to five killings but then denied all but one of them once they'd got me in custody. I told them it was because I'd wanted them to kill me: that much was true. What I told them was that I reckoned they wouldn't shoot to kill if they thought all I'd done was kill one man; I told them I needed them to think they had a psycho on their hands so they wouldn't take any chances. I told them I'd made it up, that list of the dead, but now that I was facing life not death I was better off telling the _truth_. The fact was, I had to start lying when I didn't die. Dying is easy, but serving time is hard and by then I was clinging on to the chance of that fifteen year term.

So then it was down to them to try and dig up some evidence without my help, and they got nowhere. They had no more evidence about Danny Houston than they had the first time they pulled me in for his murder two years before, so that was a dead end, so to speak. Then, with Michael, they hadn't even heard his name right when I shouted it out under the noise of the fucking helicopter, and when they eventually remembered that I'd been questioned about a Michael Cornish six months before, I just point blank denied it like I did then. There was no body, no one to point the finger, nothing to say he was even dead, and Joel and his mother wouldn't be begging for justice to be done, because it already had been. I'd done them a favour getting rid of him.

My grandmother's cause of death was certified by a doctor. Lung cancer took her, with a side order of emphysema, and there was a two inch thick file of medical records to back it up. Her wish to be cremated was in her Will in black and white, so the fact that there was no body left to be exhumed wasn't down to me. They had nothing without my confession.

When they found Simon Walker's body I had a few sleepless nights, I'll admit. They worked out he was hit by a train but he must have been carried along by it; he'd rolled down an embankment and didn't get discovered for a week or more, by someone walking a dog. It's always dog walkers that find bodies, seems like. Dog walkers, or people fishing. Anyhow, they couldn't put me together with his death. They knew I had a motive, but there were no forensics. I was worried that they'd find his bike where he'd left it and piece together some CCTV footage of my car chasing it down, but knowing Simon, the bike wouldn't be traceable to him, so maybe I owe him a thank you. Or maybe not: he liked his games, Simon did, and he liked to win them, so it was a long time before I stopped wondering if that USB home movie wasn't the only timebomb he'd planted before he caught his train. I'd be lying if I said I don't still worry about that, when I let myself think about it.

In the end they had to settle for charging me with just the one murder, and I wasn't arguing. I killed Seamus Brady, that's what I told them and that's what they believed. And that's when the procedure kicked in: no trial, no jury, no cross-examination, but an interview with the woman from the parole board who had to write the pre-sentencing report for the judge.

She liked me.

She was meant to be independent – that was her job – and I thought she'd just be after the cold facts, only she was... This Mrs Sharma, she was better than that.

She had the police reports in front of her as well as a statement from my solicitor. My version of events was that I was alone in the club (true) and I'd had a drink or two (true) and my dad came in, and he was drunk (true). And he pulled out a gun (lie) – the gun which the police agreed was the one belonging to Walker, which he'd left behind after he'd held me and my dad hostage two nights before (true). So my dad had put this gun down on the bar (lie) and we'd argued (true) and he'd got aggressive, started mouthing off at me, and I'd held off because he was my _dad_, so it was him that landed a punch, it was him that got me on the floor (true, true, true, true, true).

Everything else was a lie. That he picked up the gun, started waving it around, and I got to my feet. That I grabbed it off him and I backed away. That he dared me to fire, and he turned his back, and that I must have pulled the trigger because he fell to the floor, and that that's when my sister walked in and saw us: me with the gun in my hand; our father, shot in the back.

The thing about Mrs Sharma was, she wanted to know _why_. Why didn't me and my dad get along?Why was I stonewalling when I was asked – by the police, by my lawyer, by her in this meeting – what my dad said to me? Why would my dad dare me to shoot him?

"You understand how important this is, Mr Brady?" she asked me. "The judge will look at all the papers we've got here, but so far there's very little offered in mitigation. This is your chance to tell me anything that I should know before I write my report. It's a very unusual thing, for someone to kill their own father but as far as I can see, the prosecution isn't offering any suggestion as to motive here, am I right?"

She looked at the police officer beside her.

"No. I mean yes, you're right." He didn't look happy.

"So if there's anything you can tell me, Mr Brady, that might shed some light, now would be the time."

I didn't do it: there's my mitigation, but I couldn't say that. And I didn't see the point in spewing out a whole load of _Poor me, my daddy didn't love me_, victim shit: there's a mandatory life sentence for murder, I knew that, so what was it going to get me, telling a bunch of strangers what my dad was to me? You've got to remember, this was a month or so after it happened, and I'd seen no one except the police and my lawyers and prisoners and prison staff. Cheryl was still being kept away, and the last person I'd seen who gave a fuck about me was Steven, and my last sight of him was of his face twisted with the pain I'd given him. So my head was a mess.

"My head was a mess." I didn't mean to say it, because I knew it wasn't an answer – it was an invitation to ask me _why_.

"You and your father had been through an ordeal – you'd both been held at gunpoint. Your sister and your partner had been kidnapped too, by the same man. Were you offered help after that? Any sort of debriefing from the police at least?" She looked again at the officer, who flicked through his notes.

"No," I said. "Nothing."

"And prior to these events, you'd been accused of actual bodily harm and sexual assault on another man, which – "

"I never did it. I wouldn't – I wouldn't sexually assault someone, okay? I never would, not... Not that. I ain't a..."

I stopped when I saw the way Mrs Sharma was looking at me. It was _intently_, you know? Like she was curious. Then she looked down at the papers in the file in front of her on the table, and she read for a long time, and when she was done reading and she looked up at me again, I got the feeling she'd worked something out.

"It's in the police notes, Mr Brady. It says those charges were withdrawn at the request of the police, because the alleged victim admitted that he'd accused you falsely – "

"I know, that's what I said, I never would'a done it."

" – under duress. He told the police – it's in the notes – that he was pressurised by Detective Walker into making those allegations against you. Specifically, to accuse you of sexual assault." She looked at my solicitor this time. "What I'm concerned about is that just from a cursory look at the lead-up to this shooting, there are a lot of things that would've had a bearing on Mr Brady's state of mind, and yet I can't see any psychiatric assessment on the file – "

"I ain't crazy, alright?"

"My client refused to speak to a psychiatrist," my solicitor said, and I guess he was remembering, like I was, the terms in which I refused: _Fuck off. Fuck that. Fuck you_.

"Okay, well, I'm sure you've made Mr Brady aware that these things aren't black and white – that mitigating factors such as his mental health can make the difference between murder and manslaughter."

She didn't look sure at all, and neither was I. The guy was the same half-arsed duty solicitor I'd been given when I was arrested, and maybe I should have hired a better one, but when you're dead set on making up your own mind and ignoring the advice you're getting, it makes no difference if the advice you're ignoring is the dog's bollocks or a pile of crap.

"I'm going down either way, so."

"The outcomes are different though. The sentences. If you were sentenced for manslaughter not murder, you might be back with – " Mrs Sharma paused to check her notes – "Back with your children years earlier. Back with your partner. Look, it's my duty here to make sure the judge has possession of all the facts. I can't write my report on this case without a full psychiatric assessment, and so I'm ordering one. It's in my remit to do that, Mr Brady, and it's in your interest to cooperate. It really is."

She shook my hand before they took me out, like she reckoned I was still a person.

_Back with your children years earlier. Back with your partner._

I stopped in the doorway, turned back.

"If you wanna know about my dad and me, ask my sister for the video."

The video. Walker's parting gift. I'd kept quiet about it because I didn't want the whole fucking world to know about me, about that. I'd imagined the cops gathered around a computer screen, watching me describe what my dad did to me, watching my dad deny it then admit it; watching me scream at him; watching me cry. They'd be lapping it up like something juicy in the Sunday paper – and it would be in the papers, wouldn't it? It would be the _x_-factor that my dull little nightclub murder lacked, something to sex it up and get people reading. And when you're in jail, you can't be weak, and you can't be seen to be weak, or you'll be crushed like a cockroach. If you're seen as a victim you'll become one, simple as.

I'd said it now, though, and there was no going back, and that was when things started turning around. They got the USB from Cheryl, and it was out now, the truth about my dad. Out as far as the criminal justice system, that is, but no further: victims of sexual abuse have their identities protected from being splashed all over the press, even if said victim shoots the perpetrator in the back. Who knew? So the Sunday Sleaze still wouldn't get its story, and it was one less thing for me to be scared of in prison.

They let me watch the video, but I couldn't get through it without throwing up. There it was, him asking me – ordering me – to kill him a couple of days before he died, and me refusing to do it. There I was, a gun pointed at me, not knowing if my life was about to end. There it was, my story of years of abuse, and him admitting in the end that every word I said was true. And once it was all out, I had nothing to lose by talking to the shrink, and once I started I couldn't stop. The whole truth about my childhood spewed out of me, and I didn't have to be careful, not this time, not like when I told Steven and I'd had to edit what I said because I was breaking his heart. This time I left nothing out.

I had to stop myself when it came to talking about the day my father died. I had to stop telling the truth then, and I felt the lies attaching themselves to me like parasites, and I realised for the first time how a lifetime of lying had eaten away at me. I'd got no choice on this one though. I had to protect my sister.

The psychiatrist's report said I had probable post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of sexual abuse in childhood, aggravated by what happened when Walker held me hostage with my dad. Bottom line was, at the time that Seamus was shot, the shrink reckoned the balance of my mind was temporarily disturbed.

Sounds like psychobabble bullshit, don't it? You get well versed in psychobabble when you're on the receiving end of it, believe me. So yeah, it sounds like psychobabble and it sounds like a good excuse.

Funny thing is though, I reckon it was true.

When I changed my plea to _guilty of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility_, it was touch and go for a while. If the police had got their way and the charge had still been murder, it would have had to go to trial as I wasn't admitting it any more, and god knows what would have happened then. But the wind had changed, and they had to give up.

I got five years for possession of a firearm. I'd said it was Seamus that brought the gun to the club, but it wasn't him that used it, so if it was me that fired it, that was enough to count as possession. Possession is nine tenths of the law, they say, and sometimes it works for you, sometimes it works against you I guess. I still haven't worked out what the other tenth is – must look that up.

For the manslaughter, the judge took on board what the pre-sentence report said, the mitigating circumstances, the diminished responsibility. And the fact that I'd pleaded guilty earned me a third off my sentence, so I ended up with five years for manslaughter, to run concurrently with the five for firearm possession.

Five years. I'd be out in two and a half.

That's why I've said to my sister, _Promise me you won't tell him I'm getting out_. That's why I've said his name out loud for the first time in months: because it's September now, and I'm getting out, and I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do.


	2. Chapter 2

Cheryl was out of the car as soon as the prison door opened. It wasn't the main gate, but a featureless door a few metres along from the visitors' entrance, round the side and just across from the public car park. There was no external handle or keyhole: this one was exit only.

The first man out wasn't Brendan. The guy looked around for a moment till someone – his brother, perhaps – got out of the taxi that had been waiting with its engine running in the space next to Nate's car, and greeted him with a handshake and a pat on the back before the cab sped away with them.

Five minutes, then another one came out. This one was young, very early twenties, dazed-looking as his mum embraced him, sobbing. They had no transport, and the nearest bus stop Nate had noticed on the way here must have been ten minutes' walk away. His impulse was to offer this mother and son a lift, but one look at Cheryl told him he couldn't leave her even just to drive up the road and back. She was pale, her face etched with anxiety like it had been each time she'd visited her brother; the make-up on her eyes and lips looked startling, a painted-on statement of _Everything's fine_ that would never have fooled a man like Brendan who, Nate knew, saw acutely the chasm between appearance and truth.

Another five minutes.

"Why don't you wait in the car, Cheryl?" He held her hand. "You're getting cold."

"No. D'you think he's not coming out? Or – has he already gone, like last time? Oh God. Has he gone, cos he doesn't want – ?"

"Hey, shh. I'm sure he'll be out in a minute. Look, there are still other people waiting, so he's not the only one."

Cheryl let her boyfriend pull her into his arms.

"Will you ask, though? Next time the door opens, if it's not him, will you ask?"

Ten minutes this time, and Cheryl and Nate both straightened up as the lock clicked open.

She had imagined this moment. She would run to her brother, and they'd be laughing, both of them, and they'd hold each other tight, the Bradys back together. But now that Brendan was there, stepping out of that door at last, she found that she couldn't move.

"Here he is," Nate said, and smiled.

Brendan looked good. His beard, which had been ragged and overgrown last time Nate had been in to see him, was tidily trimmed now, and his hair was cut short. There was a pallor to his skin from too much time spent indoors, but his eyes were clear and he had none of the heaviness that two and a half years living on mass-catered food might have fostered. He looked lean and strong.

He came towards them, stopped, dropped his thick grey plastic bag of possessions on the ground and opened his arms.

"What's a fella gotta do to get a hug around here?"

* * *

_Brendan_

I didn't have much stuff to pack. I'd given away most of it – my books and so on – before I left the last prison to move to this one a couple of months back, and now I was leaving behind most of my clothes. This place was meant to be a transitionary one when you were coming to the end of your time inside, so you were allowed to wear your own clothes. Cheryl had brought me some in – new ones, bought by her and Nate – but there were plenty of guys in here who didn't have the means to get their own, or anyone willing or able to bring stuff in for them, so I handed most of mine over for the prison to donate to men in that position. I wasn't making a bid for sainthood, by the way: I just never wanted to see those clothes again. I didn't need anything to remind me of the time I'd served.

So I kept what I was wearing – jeans, trainers, a T-shirt – and left pretty much everything else. All I had to pack in the plastic bag they gave me was what I came in with, once they'd returned it to me when they processed me out, and the photographs I'd had stuck to the wall by my bunk in this prison and the last one. One of Declan and Padraig; and one that Nate took when Steven went to stay with him and Cheryl in Ireland. It's a picture taken out of doors in the sun, Cheryl looking straight at the camera with her arm around Steven's shoulders, Steven skinny in a tracksuit, gazing off to the side. Both of them smiling, both of them sad. _I didn't bring you one of him on his own_, Cheryl had said when she gave it to me, _In case, you know, you got asked questions_. That was thoughtful of her, I guess, but I'd folded it in half so all I could see was Steven anyways: I wasn't frightened any more, because I had nothing left to lose.

The prison officer who opened the door to let me out wished me luck and shook my hand. As I stepped out of the artificial heat of the prison and into the open air, I shivered, and I realised it was Autumn now.

I'd missed another Summer.

:::::::

Nate and Cheryl had sorted out a flat for me to rent; I'd needed an address to give to the probation office. I couldn't stay with them because they live over the border and I'm not allowed to leave the UK, not till the full five years of my sentence has passed – and to be honest I wouldn't have wanted to. I needed to get back on my own two feet.

When my sister had asked me where I wanted them to look for a flat, I'd said Chester. She'd looked dubious: _Are you sure, Bren? _And she'd asked, _Where abouts in Chester?_ and I'd wanted to say, _Hollyoaks. Of course, Hollyoaks_ – but then, when I'd first told her I'd need an address, I'd wanted her to say, _You'll be going home to Ste's, won't you?_ And she hadn't said that either. So my answer when she asked, _Where abouts in Chester? _was, _Anywhere. _And when we got there after a long drive from prison, she'd taken me at my word. The flat was on the far side of town, with about as much chance of me running into anyone I knew as if I'd moved to fucking Mars.

The flat was okay. Quiet street, not too rough, not too smart. Furnished; one bedroom, good shower, Sky TV. They'd filled the fridge and bought me stuff like soap and toothpaste and a razor, and Nate gave me an old phone of his as mine had been taken by the police and as far as I knew they'd still got it. I asked Chez to put in any numbers she had that I might want, and she sat and did that while Nate and I sorted out something to eat in the kitchen.

"Brendan, I've got you some cash." He indicated an envelope on the kitchen counter. "It's just to tide you over till you've got things organised, only all the money left over from the sale of the club is on deposit, so you need to give the bank notice to get at it. Anyway the rent on this place is paid for a month, so you don't need to worry about that till the end of October."

"I appreciate this. I'll pay you back, soon as I get sorted."

"There's no need."

"I ain't a charity case, Nathan."

"No. God, no, Brendan, that's not what I meant. I just meant... I'm in your debt, for what you did for Cheryl. For both of us."

"You don't owe me anything, Nathan, okay? There's no payback. Payback is knowing my sister was safe. That's how it's always been, I just did what I had to do. You'll get your money back."

I left him before he could argue, and went back to Cheryl.

"I've put in your numbers, here you go," she said.

She handed me the phone and I scrolled through the contacts she'd added for me.

_Cheryl. Declan. Eileen. Nate. Nate's mum. Mitzeee. Paddy._

"Padraig's got a mobile now?"

"Yeah, couple of Christmases ago."

I flinched. I'd only communicated with the boys through my sister ever since I'd been sent down, and now that Eileen had moved them back down to Dublin with her fella, and I'd have to wait for them to come to me because I wasn't allowed to go to the South, God alone knew when I would see them again.

_Pete_. That was the last name in the phone.

"That's all, yeah?"

"That's all I've got, Bren. I haven't got any of your mates' numbers. The landlord's details are over there on the shelf. Oh, I've got your solicitor's number, give it here and I'll put that in. Not that you'll be needing him now, of course, but I'll pop it in anyways."

"Any others you've got, Chez. _Any_ others, put them in, yeah? Anyone's you've got who I know."

"Bren, I don't think – "

"Please."

She added another contact. When she gave me back the phone, I didn't look at it.

Nate came in with the food, and we ate together. It was a stirfry and rice, nothing fancy, but Jesus it was good. It was hot, hot enough that you had to blow on it, and that was something you never got in prison: I guess they thought we'd try and inflict burns on each other or on the screws if they gave us food that hot. I didn't realise till then how much I'd missed it. It's funny, I'd thought it was drinking that I'd missed – and the cold beer that Chez handed me hit the spot alright – but I got half way down the bottle and I didn't want any more.

They wanted to stay the night, make sure I was okay, but I wouldn't let them. I wanted to be on my own. I'd had two and a half years of knowing, even if I was alone, that either I was on CCTV or the viewing hatch in my cell door might slide open any time and there'd be eyes on me. It was enough to make you paranoid even if you weren't already paranoid. But that wasn't the only reason I wanted Cheryl and Nate to leave that first night. The fact was, I couldn't relax around my sister.

When I'd seen her outside the prison gate, standing over by their car and looking across as I came out of the building, I'd thought for a minute she was scared of me, but then I figured out that it was guilt holding her back. I had to go to her, act like everything was just dandy, open my arms to her, and when I held her it felt like she was going to collapse. I felt like I was having to look after her before I'd even got a lungful of freedom, and that's fine, she's my baby sister and it's what I do, it's what I've always done. But then back at the flat – my flat, I guess I should call it – I found myself having to act a part, like if I didn't act like everything was okay, she might not be able to keep her own _Everything's okay _act going either. And I was _tired_. I didn't want to talk, or watch TV. I wanted to sleep.

Nate got it. He didn't argue when I said I didn't want them staying, and he didn't let Cheryl argue either.

"Anyhow," I said, and I was trying to make my sister smile, "There's only one bed, and I ain't sleeping on the couch even for you."

"We'd have the couch, Bren, if that's what's – "

"No, come on, you," Nate said. "We're going to leave Brendan in peace."

I gave my sister a hug and a kiss, and she said to me, "You're not going to do anything silly are you, Brendan? Cos Ste's... I'm sorry, I didn't want to tell you, but he's moved on, you know? And it wouldn't be fair on either of you if..."

"It's okay. I'm just gonna get to bed, okay?"

They left then, off to spend the night at Nate's mother's place where Cheryl usually stayed when she'd come to visit me.

There were towels in the bathroom. There was new underwear and T-shirts in the drawers in the bedroom. I emptied my plastic bag onto the bed, put the odds and ends away. I had the suit I'd worn to my sentencing hearing; I put it on a hanger and took it into the bathroom and hung it behind the door hoping the creases would drop out of it in the steam.

I lay in the bath for an hour, near enough, just topping up the hot water when it started to get cold. First bath I'd had since the one I had when I got out of bed and left Steven sleeping, the morning of the day my father died. I was always a shower man until I moved in with Steven, but prison showers were guaranteed to put you off. The water was never hot enough – same reason as the food, probably – and they were no place to linger for other reasons. So when I got out of that bath on my first night outside, it was the first time in years that I felt properly clean.

I sat on the bed and looked at the folded photo of Steven; I leaned it against the base of the bedside lamp so if I woke in the night I could see it, like I always could these past two years. Then I picked up my phone and scrolled through the names in it again: _Cheryl. Declan. Eileen. Nate. Nate's mum. Mitzeee. _I pressed _Edit contact: Name_, and typed in _Anne_.

_Paddy. Pete. Solicitor._

_Ste._

_Edit contact: Name._

_Steven._

I got into bed and fell asleep, and didn't wake up till twelve hours later.

:::::::

First few days, I was busy, or leastways it felt like I was, because when the only decision you're in the habit of making is which kind of cereal to have for breakfast, any kind of normal stuff – what time to get up in the morning, whether to go _out_ – takes a lot of effort even thinking about it. It was daunting, I guess you might say. I guess you might say I was institutionalised.

Cheryl and Nate went back to Ireland. Cheryl would have stayed, but Nate got it, you know? He could see it was no good for either of us, her falling over herself to do things for me. It made me think of how she was with Seamus, trying to be some kind of housewife, and it felt fucked up. I didn't need her to be like that; I didn't need her to compensate for what I'd done for her, because I knew she'd been punished just as much as I had. More: she'll never have a day when she doesn't think about that moment when she put a bullet into her dad. If I could go back and kill the bastard myself, and spare her that memory, I'd do it, but I can't. It's done now, and we are where we are, and if all we see when we're together is a bunch of _if only_s, it's easier for now if we're apart. Nate got it, and took her home.

A couple of times, I picked up my phone to call Steven, but I didn't go through with it. I'd let him go – _made_ him go – so he wouldn't waste his life waiting for me, and it looked like he'd done what I'd wanted. He couldn't have known the wait wouldn't be for ever: I hadn't known it myself that morning when I'd said to him, ___I'm going away for life. You gotta live yours__. _I couldn't blame him for doing what I asked of him. I'd told him, _Steven, let go_, and he had. So if I called him now, what the fuck would I say?

The answer was, nothing. That's what I said when I called him and he answered: nothing.

I got my appetite for booze back, see. Beer hadn't done it, but whiskey did, and when it's late at night and you're on your own in a bar and there's a barman with a fringe of blond hair falling over his eyes, and hips so bony they'd crack like a wishbone if you yanked his legs apart – and when you start imagining it, and it leaves you cold – that's when it hits you. What I wanted. What I'd lost. So I got my phone out of my pocket, and I called.

I think I woke him up. His _Hello?_ was sleepy. His next one was suspicious, anxious, was it? Or was it just annoyed? And I said nothing. I ended the call. I was sweating. My heart was rattling. Fuck.

:::::::

I got my car back. Didn't think they'd give it to me – it had been impounded by the police when they arrested me, and they'd had their forensics people on it for any traces of my victims before I persuaded them that there were no victims except for my dad. My solicitor saw the report at the time: no one's blood, no DNA in the boot; semen on the back seat and the back of the front passenger seat and on two of the door handles – my semen and A. N. Other's, but they didn't care about that because they weren't after me for my sex life. Yeah. Brought back memories for me to replay in my head in my cell, of going driving with Steven.

Anyhow. I mentioned my car to my probation officer, and he said he didn't see why they wouldn't let me have it back, and he had a word – he's ex-police, so maybe that helped – and they said I could go and collect it, simple as that. Had to show my licence and my release sheet, and then I had to walk half a mile to get a can of petrol because they'd emptied the fucking thing, but I drove it out of there. Course, it didn't have its MOT and tax, and I half expected to be pulled over soon as I left the pound, but sometimes paranoia is just paranoia and they're not really out to get you. I drove straight to a garage outside Liverpool, old mate of mine, and traded it in for something less eye-catching. No point getting the cops excited if you don't have to.

When I went to collect the new one, my mate at the garage handed me back a CD he'd found in the player in the BMW. It was Johnny Cash: _Solitary Man_. Felt like someone up there was trying to tell me something. I played it as I drove back to my new flat, and when I got there I parked up in the street outside and I sat in the car and listened till it finished.

:::::::

"Hello?" He paused, and I could hear him breathing, and I almost hung up again, and then he said, "D'you know what? Look, right, either say something or fuck off."

"It's me." I waited, listened. Wondered if he'd even know who 'me' was, recognise my voice after all this time.

"Brendan?"

I screwed my eyes shut, curled forward where I sat on the edge of my bed, my stomach muscles tightening and pulling me into myself. Jesus. _Man up_.

"Yeah. I got out, so."

"What? How? Like, escaped?"

"No. No, just released. Long story." I waited again for him to say something, but I guess it was down to me. "You okay, Steven?"

"When? How long you been out? Cheryl never said you was – "

"Few days. I asked her not to. Didn't know if... Didn't know if you'd wanna know."

"Where are you?"

That wasn't an answer. _Course I'd wanna know_ – that was an answer. Or, _Yeah, well, you're right there, why would I wanna know?_ That was an answer too. I just needed a fucking answer so I'd know what to do about this twist in my gut.

"Chester," I said.

"Oh. Right."

"I just... I just wanted to ask, you still got my things? You know, clothes or whatever. Wondered if you still had them, you know, so I don't have to buy all new."

See? I'd thought of an excuse to call him. Didn't realise how pathetic it'd sound till I said it out loud, but still.

"Your..? Yeah. Yeah, everything's still... The police took a lot of it but they brung most of it back, so it's..." He swallowed, and I imagined his Adam's apple sliding up and back down again. "D'you wanna come and get it?"

So, tomorrow. I'd be seeing him tomorrow.

:::::::

There were two Stevens in my head when I was inside. There was the one who was there when I was awake, and I _used_ him. I used him to get me through the days and the weeks and the months; I used him to get me off to sleep, and to get me off.

The other one was with me in my dreams.

The first one, Fantasy Steven if you will, kept me sane – or as sane as it was possible to be in that place when you were locked up for something you didn't do and you were pretending you didn't do the things you did. Fantasy Steven wasn't the porn-perfect, biddable boy you might expect to figure in a prisoner's wank bank. He was _real_, as real as my memory could make him: that was the whole point. I needed him to tie me to the life outside, because when you're inside, even if you read the papers and you listen to the radio and you watch the TV in the rec room, the world still gets away from you – or you get away from it. You're adrift.

Doing time: I didn't understand what it meant – what it really meant – when I did those two or three months on remand four years ago, but some time into this stretch, maybe six months in, I got it. You're _doing time_ because the time you do is not the same as the time outside those walls. It goes slowly, but that's not what I'm trying to say; time on the outside can drag too, when you're enduring something and wanting it to end, or when you're wanting something to happen and doubt it ever will. What I mean is, the time you do in prison is _separate_. It runs alongside the months that go by on the outside, but it's not in parallel, it's divergent. For us in there, time curves away from the times everyone else is having, everyone we know and we could know, everyone we don't give a fuck about, everyone we love. All their times, they're going their own sweet way without us, and our time – the time we're doing – is taking us further away from them so that when we meet them again, there's something we can't reach in them, or they in us. We're ghosts to each other. That's what the papers don't get, and the politicians, when they say prison's like a holiday camp if we get to watch TV and eat plenty and read books and sit on our arses. They don't get that it's the _doing time_ that takes something from you.

That's why I'd needed Fantasy Steven to be real in my head. I had to remember his moods and his morning breath and the stubble in the middle of his chest if he hadn't shaved it away; I had to remember him hating me sometimes, and laughing his foghorn laugh, and being lazy, and being interfering. I had to remember the scar on his lip, and the rough skin on his elbows, and the flaw in him that had made him love me. I'd needed him to be real so I would stay real too.

The other Steven – Dream Steven, let's call him – could sustain me or punish me, and I never knew which it would be when sleep came. He might be in my arms, warm fleshed and wet mouthed, bending under my weight or wild and riding me. Or he might be afraid, cornered, his face ruined with tears and blood and bruises, and sometimes someone had hurt him when I wasn't there to stop them, and sometimes it was me: I had hurt him, and it was me he was afraid of. Or he might be unharmed, and when he looked at me it wasn't in fear but in pity, and I'd wake up in despair.

The Steven who opened the door to me wasn't a dream or a fantasy.

I don't know what I'd expected. He was twenty-five now, nearer twenty-six, and maybe I thought he'd have got a little heavier, but he hadn't. He was wearing a tracksuit, an old one that was new when I knew him, and it was loose on him. His cheekbones were sharp and his eyes as he looked up at me were huge, and he opened his mouth and I thought he was going to say something but he didn't, he just seemed to draw a breath in, and all I could think of was that all my dreams and all my fantasies were nothing compared to this Steven, the Steven who stood for a moment looking as if he might run away, before he threw himself into my arms.

We fell into the flat. I think he kicked the door shut, or maybe I did, and we were in the hallway and I was pressing him against the wall, my knee between his legs, his arms around my neck, his hands grabbing my hair as we kissed. We bit at each other, tongues and lips, and the taste of him was the same – the same as the taste of him when they'd dragged him from me the last time I'd kissed him, the last time I'd kissed anyone. I broke from his mouth, lifted my head just to get a breath, and his mouth went to my throat, his teeth scraping over my beard till I pulled his head back by his hair and kissed him again. I ran a hand up his flank inside his clothes: his skin was smooth and hot.

When he broke away it was to head to the bedroom, pulling me by the wrist till he stumbled backwards onto the bed and I was kneeling over him, one hand each side of him on the mattress, and then –

And then he shook his head, "No, wait."

I stood up. This was it, this was what I knew would happen. This was why I should have stayed away, why he was better off without me, why dying had been an option that wasn't so hard.

He didn't want me. I'd always known it. I'd always known that once he knew what my dad had done to me, he _couldn't_ want me any more. He'd know I was a fake, that I wasn't what he needed me to be. He would _pity_ me.

"What's the matter, Steven?" I said, and I could hear the snarl in my voice as I said his name.

"Nothing, I just – "

I didn't let him finish. I couldn't stand the thought of hearing him try and come up with a excuse, when I knew the truth: that sex and pity don't mix.

"Who is he?" I asked. Deflection.

"What?"

"Your boyfriend. Who is he?"

"No one."

"Don't lie to me, Steven. I can _smell_ him."

"Brendan, don't. Please don't."

He got up off the bed, started coming towards me. There were tears in his eyes. I knew it. _Pity_.

I batted his hand away as he tried to touch me.

"He's welcome to you," I said, and I turned away, and I walked out.

:::::::

The CD player came on as I started the engine and drove off.

_Will it make it easier on you now  
If you've got someone to blame? _

It began to rain. I switched the wipers on but I still couldn't see the road ahead. I rubbed at my eyes with my fist; my cheeks were wet. Fuck.

_One love, we get to share it  
It leaves you baby if you don't care for it_

Fuck.

What the fuck was it for? Month after month spilling my guts out to that counsellor, trying not to cry like a baby, trying to laugh it off, till the walls were down and I started piece by piece to build a better me. Month after month, learning why I lashed out and figuring ways to stop it.

_He_ was what it was for. Deserving him was what it was for, even though I hadn't dared to hope that I'd ever get the chance to show him. He was what changed everything, and now, the first chance I'd got, I'd screwed it up.

_We're one but we're not the same  
Well we hurt each other, and we're doing it again_

I slammed on the brake and skidded to a stop, and then I turned the car around and drove back the way I had come.


	3. Chapter 3

He'd had a phone call, a silent one, late one night, from a number he didn't recognise. It woke him up and he'd said _Hello?_ but whoever was there – and Ste knew there was someone there because he heard an intake of breath – said nothing. He'd said _Hello_ again, because if it was something like a wrong number, they'd have said something then, wouldn't they? But they didn't, and that was when he'd felt the anxiety rise in him. When he tried one last time, his _Hello_ didn't sound assertive like he'd wanted it to.

If it was the bloke he owed money to, Ste didn't want him to know that he was scared.

A few days later, another call. Daytime this time. Same number on the screen.

"Hello?" Ste waited, wished they would say something but, fuck, he wasn't going to let them hear that he was frightened this time: wouldn't give them the satisfaction. "D'you know what? Look, right, either say something or fuck off."

"It's me."

Two words, and Ste felt as if he'd been lifted off his feet and spun around. He shut his eyes and gripped the edge of the kitchen counter for support.

"Brendan?" He said it like a question, but he knew without any doubt it was him. It couldn't be – why would it be? – but it was.

Still, he waited for an answer, and when it came it was casual, "Yeah. I got out, so."

Brendan was in prison for life. That was what he'd said would happen to him. It was what must have happened because of all the murders he'd said he'd done. This didn't make sense.

"What?" Ste asked. "How? Like, escaped?"

"No. No, just released. Long story." Brendan's voice was low, like it used to be when he was tired, and it was careful, like it used to be when he was unsure of Ste's mood; and it was _familiar_. "You okay, Steven?"

"When? How long you been out? Cheryl never said you was – "

"Few days. I asked her not to. Didn't know if... Didn't know if you'd wanna know."

Ste did want to know. His pounding heart told him how much, but it scared him too, so all he said was_, _"Where are you?"

"Chester."

Not Dublin with his kids. Not Derry with his sister. _Chester_.

"Oh. Right."

"I just... I just wanted to ask, you still got my things? You know, clothes or whatever. Wondered if you still had them, you know, so I don't have to buy all new."

Was that it? Was that all he wanted?

"Your..? Yeah. Yeah, everything's still... The police took a lot of it but they brung most of it back, so it's..." He swallowed, and took the risk: "D'you wanna come and get it?"

Oh god, did that sound like a come-on? He waited for Brendan's answer. _I thought you'd never ask_, or, _Now there's an offer I can't refuse_ – something calculated to make Ste blush, and that would prove that Brendan was still Brendan – but when the reply came it was nothing like that.

"When's convenient for you, Steven?"

"Erm, not today." Definitely not today. "Tomorrow? Like, afternoon?"

"Okay. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon. Cheers."

"Okay."

"Steven?"

"Yeah?"

"Still live in the same place, yeah?"

"Yeah, still here."

Ste waited for Brendan to say something else, but when he looked at his phone's screen, the call had been ended.

He stood for a minute, staring at nothing. Sweat prickled under his arms, and he could hear his breaths loud and shaky in the quiet of the flat, and something in the middle of him – in his stomach or in his chest – felt raw and unsettling and long lost.

There were things he needed to do, belongings to be sorted out from his own. He gathered them, scanning each room, cool-eyed. Clothes, a few DVDs, books. Aftershave. He piled them onto the bed and fetched a binbag and started to pack them into it, but stopped. It seemed too cold, too insulting, and he didn't need to be like that, so he dragged his old suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe, emptied out the binbag again and packed all the things into the case instead and zipped it closed. Then he went to the fridge and got out a couple of cans of lager. One of them he drank standing in the kitchen, and the second one he opened and took into the lounge, and drank sitting on the sofa, his knees hugged to his chest.

An hour later, his boyfriend got home.

"Ste? You're starting early, aren't you? Shit, are you okay?"

"Don't know." He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and stood up. "You've got to go though."

"What?"

"I need you to go, please."

"I don't... What d'you mean, I've got to _go_? Go where?"

"Dunno. You've got mates, you could... You just can't stay here now, right. It's over."

"_Over_? What the fuck are you – ? Something's happened, hasn't it?"

"Sorry. It's nothing to do with... It's nothing you've done, right, it's... Look, right, I'm sorry, but Brendan's back." The words sounded unbelievable to Ste as he said them, so he said them again: "Brendan's back."

"Brendan? Your – ?"

"Yeah."

"I thought he was... How can he be back?"

"He just is."

"Right." He shook his head, almost laughed at the absurdity.

"I've packed your stuff." Ste squeezed past his boyfriend without touching or looking at him, and went and got the case out of their bedroom. He put it down next to the flat's front door.

"So have you been fucking him, Ste?"

"No. I an't even seen him."

"Fucking hell, how do you even know you and him are gonna – ?"

"I don't."

"But you're dumping me anyway."

"I said I'm sorry."

"If you're sorry, then..." He went to Ste, took hold of his hand.

"Don't." Ste shook him off. "You're not gonna change my mind. Look, I never lied to you, right, you knew Brendan was..."

He opened the flat door and dragged the case out of the flat and out of the front door. His boyfriend hadn't followed him, so he went back inside and found him standing in the hallway.

"You know, what's so fucking mental is, I knew this was gonna happen. If Brendan ever came back, I knew you'd go crawling back to him. I must be an idiot, thinking you ever – "

"You're not an idiot," Ste told him. He had felt detached up until now, but the flash of anger in his boyfriend – the flash of passion – jolted him into the reality of what he was doing to him. "It's me, it's my fault. I shouldn'a made you think I..." I _loved you_. He couldn't say it. He had, he'd said it to him before, and he'd thought he'd meant it but now he knew it had been nothing like love.

"So was it ever real? You and me, was it... Or was I always second best?" He waited for an answer that didn't come. "Right. Thought so."

"It's not just me, though, is it, eh?" Ste said. "I mean, if you loved me you'd be fighting for me, wouldn't you? You wouldn't just, like, head for the door when I tell you to go."

"What, so you want me to fight a serial killer for you? Grow up, Ste."

"I'm just saying."

"And what if I did? Would it make any difference?"

"No."

"No." He pushed past Ste and went outside. "I'll give you a call when I've found somewhere, you can come and get your case back."

"Keep it. But give us your keys."

"D'you know what?" He slid the flat keys off his keyring and slapped them into Ste's outstretched hand. "Scratch the surface and you're a fucking arsehole, mate. And d'you wanna know something else?"

"What?"

"You ain't all that."

Ste shut the door on him.

They had lived together for months. Last night they had eaten together, watched TV together, had sex and fallen asleep together. Now that he'd gone, Ste leaned back against the door and cried, because he didn't feel anything, and realised that he never had.

:::::::

He didn't know what time Brendan was coming. Afternoon, he'd said, but that could mean anything.

He felt wired. He hadn't slept, or hardly – his mind had been too full of questions. Why had they let Brendan out? Was he really coming just to pick up his things? What if he didn't come at all? What if this feeling – this sickness and lightheadedness that Ste hadn't felt for years – wasn't what he thought it was, and it was just shock, and he'd look at Brendan and feel nothing? Can you really love someone still when you haven't seen them for two and a half years – and even if he did, what if Brendan didn't? Eventually he had forced himself to stop asking himself questions he couldn't answer, but then it was something else that kept him awake: it was _hope_, and he couldn't get rid of it, and it terrified him.

He showered and shaved and tidied the flat. There was a week's worth of dirty dishes piled in the sink and beside it, and he killed an hour washing up. Then the kids rang as they always did on a Saturday when they weren't with him, and for those few minutes he almost forgot about Brendan. He couldn't tell them about him anyway, not yet, even though Leah still talked about him in secret conversations with Ste behind her mother's back. There might be nothing to tell, and if it turned out that there was – if it turned out that this was a good day – all the old problems with Amy would come back again, maybe worse than ever.

He made himself a sandwich but couldn't eat it.

He got changed out of the tracksuit he'd thrown on after his shower, into his goodish jeans and a newish shirt, and then felt stupid dressing up when Brendan was most likely just going to come in and get his things and go off again, because Ste wasn't all that, was he? So he put the tracksuit back on, and he remembered like he'd remembered every time he'd ever put it on, that he'd bought it with money that Brendan had given him to treat himself, and he remembered Brendan unzipping it for him, and he felt that stupid feeling of hope again that he'd felt too many times back when Brendan used to let him down. It wouldn't be Brendan doing it this time: Brendan didn't know about the hope, did he? Let alone share it.

The knocking on the door made him jump.

Just say hello, just –

Brendan was wearing a suit. The shirt underneath it was stretched tight across his chest but looser over his stomach. He had a beard. He was still, his face expressionless, but Ste could read in his eyes something like uncertainty, and then the eyes flicked for the briefest second down Ste's body and up again, and then he moved – leaned – almost imperceptibly forward.

_Just say hello_. Ste opened his mouth and took a breath, but he couldn't speak. Was it fear, or – ?

He threw himself at Brendan. Brendan staggered back with the impact, and then forwards into the flat, Ste clinging round his neck and kissing him, and still kissing him as Brendan's body pressed him hard against the wall, and Ste grabbed at him, his fingers meshed in his hair, and opened his mouth for Brendan's tongue to take him.

He felt as if Brendan had never been away, and had been away for ever.

Brendan broke the kiss to gasp for air, and Ste kissed his throat, and the hairs of his beard felt strange against his lips and his tongue, and he scraped with his teeth to find the skin beneath, and then he felt Brendan's hand in his hair, and his head was pulled back and Brendan's mouth was on his mouth again, and when Brendan's other hand touched his bare skin under his tracksuit top, Ste felt his body flush with heat. He slid out from the trap of Brendan's body against the wall, and got hold of his wrist, and pulled him into the bedroom.

He toppled backwards onto the bed, and Brendan was on him. Ste looked up at him and saw the hunger of an animal – and what if that was all it was? What if he was here to feed his appetite, and he'd have his fill and then go? If that happened, Ste's heart would break all over again.

He shook his head.

"No, wait," he said.

Brendan jumped off him as if he'd been stung. He turned his back, and when he turned to face him again his face had hardened into a snarl.

"What's the matter, Steven?"

"Nothing, I just – " _I just need to know that this is for ever_.

Brendan cut him off: "Who is he?"

"What?"

"Your boyfriend. Who is he?"

"No one."

"Don't lie to me, Steven. I can _smell_ him."

"Brendan, don't." He felt tears brimming and threatening to fall. "Please don't."

He clambered off the bed and moved towards Brendan, reached out to him, but Brendan hit his hand away.

"He's welcome to you," Brendan said, and he turned and walked out.

Ste heard the front door slam.

He stood for a moment breathing hard, and then his stomach began to heave and he made it to the bathroom and retched into the basin. The bile burned his throat and his eyes streamed, and when he'd finished being sick, he sobbed.

He went into the kitchen and got a glass from where the washing-up was draining in a precarious pile, and he filled it from the tap and drank it down. He wiped his eyes and his mouth on his sleeve.

How could he have let himself _hope_? He felt stupid, and his upset turned to anger, and when the glass slipped out of his hand and smashed on the floor, he looked at it for a moment then he started to scream, _No. No._ He swept the stack of dishes off the draining board and they rolled and bounced and shattered on the floor. He dragged the microwave off the counter and it landed on its side, half suspended by its cable still plugged in at the socket. Its door clanged open with the impact. _No. No. No._ He pulled out a drawer and threw it across the room. _No_.

And then when he stopped, the noise carried on, and it took him a few seconds to work out that there was someone hammering on the front door.

* * *

_Brendan_

I could hear something as I walked from my car back to the flats, some kind of havoc going on, screaming and hollering and things getting broken. I pounded on the door with my fist until he opened it.

He didn't look like he could have been the one making all that noise, but he had to be. He looked kind of numb now, and small like he wouldn't have the lungs in him to yell like that or the strength to smash things up with enough force to make the racket it had made.

"You've come back to get your things," he said, and his voice was flat and he stood back to let me go inside.

"I've come back to talk." I walked in, and on the floor in the passage there was shrapnel that had exploded out from the kitchen. "Jesus, Steven."

The kitchen must have been where he'd blown up. It was a mess of broken china and glass. The microwave was on the floor with its door hanging off. There was a dent in the front of the washing machine. The kettle was lying on its side, rocking from the momentum I guess, and the water was draining out of it and dripping off the worktop.

"I better clear up," Steven said, and I turned to look at him. He had nothing on his feet except socks.

"You'll get cut to pieces. You got a broom?" When I didn't get an answer I wanted to touch him, but it was obvious he was too volatile to be touched so I snapped my fingers in front of his face. "Steven. A brush. A broom – have you got one? Go and get it, yeah? There's a good lad."

I took my jacket off and threw it onto a chair in the lounge, and rolled up my shirtsleeves. Steven found the broom and gave it to me, and I told him to sit down, and he did what he was told without arguing, and in the whole time it took me to clear up the mess – must have been half an hour or more – I didn't hear a word out of him. All the time, I was asking myself, did I do this? Was he okay until I showed my face again?

The kettle still worked, so I found a couple of mugs that had escaped the carnage, and made tea. Loads of sugar in both of them. When I took them in, Steven was still sat where I'd left him. Jesus.

"Ta," he said when I gave him his cup.

I sat down.

"So, you're gonna need a new microwave."

"Right."

I watched him drink his tea.

"I shouldn'a kissed you," I said.

"_I_ kissed _you_."

"I shouldn'a let you. And I shouldn'a said what I said, Steven, okay? About your... your boyfriend. It's your business, it's... You've moved on, I get it."

"I an't got a boyfriend. Did have, but he's gone, yeah, I told him to go yesterday, cos you was back. That's a joke, innit."

All I heard was _yesterday_. He had someone in his bed yesterday.

"So who was it, hm? Douglas? Talked his way back in, did he, soon as I got put away?"

"Doug's long gone." He paused. "And you're right, it's _my_ business – what did you expect, eh? What was I meant to do? And what about you, Brendan, locked away with all them blokes? Don't tell me you never fucked anyone in prison, right, cos I won't believe you. I know you, don't I."

Steven shot me a look. His eyes were red from crying, and the look in them made my heart clench.

Fuck. How many times had I made him look at me like that? Like he wanted to believe in me but I'd disappointed him. Like I'd hurt him and he was waiting for me to do it again. And then I heard in my head what he'd said either side of the _yesterday_ – the part I'd ignored because I'm a fucking moron – _I told him to go, cos you was back_.

"Steven – "

"So, did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you fuck around in there?"

I thought about lying, but Steven deserved better than that, and besides, I'd been getting used to telling the truth. I'd told so much truth to the shrink and then the counsellor that sometimes after a session I felt like I'd been turned inside out, and my nightmares got so bad I didn't dare go to sleep, and I felt like giving up but I never did.

"I didn't fuck anyone." It was true, but not the whole truth, and I didn't think it would be enough for Steven.

I was right.

"Yeah, course you didn't, Brendan."

"I didn't. Just, you know... Most of the time I just jerked off if I had to, okay? Jesus."

"Most of the time." He stood up, snatched my cup out of my hand and stomped over to the kitchen.

I followed him.

"I ain't finished that," I said, and he poured the dregs of my tea down the sink. "Okay, apparently I have."

"What about the rest of the time, when you wasn't wanking yourself off?" He was stood facing me now, with his jaw set and his bottom lip stuck out like a sulking schoolboy.

I forced myself to stop looking at his mouth.

"Fucksake, Steven." There was no getting out of it. "There was... for a while, there was a lad, and we... But we never fucked, okay, we just..."

In the second of the three prisons I was in, I had a job. Not the kitchens or the gardens or the workshops – they didn't want me anywhere I could get hold of something I might kill myself with – but the library. And there was a lad used to come in. He was getting help with his reading and writing from the literacy classes and they sent him down to find books to read once he got going, and there was a blind spot, a corner where the CC camera was blocked, and if we were careful we could get a little privacy. Intimacy. It was nothing, but it was something.

"A _lad_? How old?"

"What's that meant to mean? It wasn't Juvenile Offenders, Steven, for chrissake. He was old enough."

"I didn't mean... I mean, was he younger than me?"

"I dunno. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."

"Right." He turned away. "That's what you're after, a younger model."

"What? Jesus, I was kissing your face off an hour ago, boy – it was you that stopped me. It was _you_ that didn't want _me_." I took a breath, and I touched his arm; held it lightly, and felt the heat of him burning through his sleeve. "Steven. Steven, I never fucked him. I never fucked anyone."

"Whatever."

"I never kissed anyone either, okay? Not from the day we said goodbye, till today. I ain't kissed anyone, only you."

He turned and looked at me. He was beautiful, as beautiful as I'd ever seen him, and then he smiled. It wasn't much of a smile – it seemed like it took an effort of will to do it – but it was the first one I'd seen since he told me we'd get our happy ever after.

"Never kissed you with your beard before," he said. "I wanted to, though."

"What – last time, you mean? When I got out before?"

"Yeah."

"No, you hated me then."

"I know I did. I do."

"Fair enough."

He smiled at that, less tentative this time.

"D'you want a drink?"

"Okay."

He went to the fridge and got out a can.

"Last one. We'll have to share." He didn't bother to look for an unbroken glass, he just opened the can, took a swig and handed it to me. "D'you wanna know why I stopped you before? You know, when we was gonna..."

I knew why. He'd remembered that we hadn't been together since I told him I was a _victim_, and his desire had turned to pity and his body had recoiled. I'd forgotten it myself while we'd been talking, but now I remembered it and I gulped at the cold beer and when I handed the can back to Steven and our hands touched, I could imagine his revulsion and I said, "Sorry."

"Brendan, I stopped you cos I wanted to make sure... Right, I wanted to make sure it was..."

He was looking at the floor, at his drink, at the window, anywhere except at me.

"You wanted to make sure it was what?"

"For ever."

_Am I dreaming? _I took the can out of his hand and put it down, and I took his face in my hands and I kissed him, gently this time. The corners of his mouth were crusted and bitter as if he'd been sick. His tongue tasted of sweet tea and cheap lager. The kiss became a hug, and I held him and breathed in the clean scent of his hair.

"I never stopped loving you, Steven, okay? All the time, I never felt any differently about you."

"I never felt any differently about you neither," he said, and I felt his breath damp against my neck as he spoke. "Them others, I never – "

"I know." I buried the _them_ with the rest of the things that rise up and torment me when it's dark.

We stood there for a while not saying anything else. Our breathing and our heartbeats fell into sync.

Eventually he loosened his hold and looked up at me.

"How come you're out of prison?" He was frowning at me, as if he was making an effort to think straight.

"They always do it, let you out half way through. Out on licence."

He kept on frowning. His eyes were dark in the shadow of his brows and lashes.

"So you only got five years?" He shook his head. "No, you couldn't of, you said it was gonna be life."

"It didn't work out like that. Only thing I got sent down for was for killing my dad."

"But you confessed though, you said – "

"I retracted it, Steven. I didn't have the guts, and they didn't have the evidence, so. Only one I put my hands up to was the one I had to."

"I don't believe this." His voice was rising, and he moved away from me. "I thought you was never coming out, I thought... If I'd known, if I'd known you weren't gone for ever, I would'a... It would'a been different. Everything would'a been."

"I'm sorry, Steven."

"Why didn't you tell me? Cheryl – why didn't she tell me? She's been lying to me, she's meant to be my mate – "

"It ain't her fault. I didn't want her to tell you, I didn't want... I didn't want you to put your life on hold waiting."

"It weren't up to you, though! Don't I get to make my own mind up?"

"Wasn't just that, Steven. I was scared, you know? I thought maybe they'd come up with something, evidence about the other murders and I'd get charged with them, and then it would'a been life."

Steven looked frightened then.

"They still could, you mean? No, they can't, you've only just got out, Brendan. What if they come after you?"

"They won't, not now, okay? They ain't interested. Even if they found anything on Walker, they wouldn't use it. They like rogue cops to stay buried, they don't like the headlines. And there's nothing to find on the others. I ain't going back."

"Promise? Promise me, Brendan, cos I can't..."

"Cross my heart." I did the cross your heart thing with my finger across my chest like you do when you're a kid.

Steven nodded.

"And it's for ever?" he said. "I mean it, right, you and me... If it's not gonna be for ever, I need to know now, so I don't - "

"It's for ever. If you want me for ever, it's for ever."

The way he looked at me, I'd seen it before. The way he surrendered, I'd seen it before. _I'm gonna kiss you now_, I'd said, and there was light on the water and stars in the sky. _Come here_. And he'd surrendered then like he surrendered now – but now, like then, this was no capitulation. When he came to me he was surrendering to something that was bigger than both of us, and so was I.

I carried him to bed.

I fell with him onto it and the wind was knocked out of him as I landed on him, so at first it was like undressing a ragdoll – he was no help but no hindrance either, and I unzipped his tracksuit top and pulled it off him then I dragged his T-shirt off over his head before he got his breath back. He sat up then and started unbuttoning my shirt, and I stuck my hand down the front of his pants and when I did that, he lost the use of his fingers and flopped back onto the mattress, the back of his head pressed into the pillow and a string of filthy words coming out of his pretty mouth. I played with him with one hand, finished undoing my shirt with the other, and watched his scrawny body writhing as I unbuckled my belt.

He was skin and bone, more so than he was when I went away. It wasn't right, he didn't ought to be that thin, but god help me it made me crazy for him. I stood up and yanked his trackies and his boxers off him in one, and just for a second he looked self-conscious, and then he reached for my flies. I stopped him, lifted him up by his arms and kissed him, and then I shoved him back onto the bed. He bounced as he landed.

I stripped off and he watched me. My body was different than it was before. I'd spent hours working out, day in day out, and I was stronger than I'd ever been, and I wanted to see Steven see it. I thought if he saw me like this, he'd forget the child I'd told him I once was and only see the man I was now – and it worked. The way he looked at me as I undressed, it was with all the wanting and needing that I could have wished for. He propped himself onto his elbows, and his eyes were black, and the tip of his tongue swept across his lips, and the tip of his cock shone with a dribble of pre-cum as he stared at me.

"We gonna use..?" he asked, and he indicated the bedside cabinet, and I pulled out the drawer and he had condoms and lube in there – not for my benefit, I guessed, and that was another bad thought to bury with the rest.

"Turn over." I wanted him face down so he wouldn't see my doubts and start doubting me too.

I got on the bed and rolled onto him, pressing him down under my weight. His back felt smooth against my chest, and I kissed the nape of his neck then bit it, and bit along the line of his shoulder, and then he twisted his head around for a kiss, and reached back with his hand and squeezed my backside.

I raised myself up and examined him, and every mole was where I'd mapped it in my head in my prison cell, and the texture of the skin of his back beneath my palms was as I'd remembered it – soft as velvet when I stroked upwards, softer still when I stroked down with the grain of the invisible down that covered it. The sound of his breathing was the same too, the way it caught in his throat when a touch or a kiss took him by surprise, the way it blurred from breathing to moaning when my thumbs parted the cheeks of his arse and he felt my breath.

He didn't look bruised or stretched or sore. He felt closed and tight when I tested him with my tongue. He didn't seem used.

"Brendan. Brendan." He scrambled out of my grip and grabbed a condom from the open drawer, and tore it open. "Here."

I knelt up.

"Impatient, are we?"

"Can you blame me?"

I smiled at that. Not so satisfied, then, with the recently-ex-boyfriend?

He saw me smile, and he laughed and came and put his arms around my neck and we kissed, and his hand wandered down and touched my cock for the first time, and I jumped at the sensation, and this – this was like I remembered, only I'd forgotten how sure he was when he touched me, how he knew me. I'd forgotten what it was like to be touched by someone who loved me.

He put the rubber on me, kneeling there in front of me, both hands busy, his head leaning against my chest as he looked down at what he was doing. I rubbed his back while he did it, then I scratched him hard across his shoulder blades with my finger nails, deep enough to make him yelp in pain and look at me in alarm. I don't know why I did that.

When he twisted his arm behind his back to touch where I'd scratched, he got blood on his fingers and I held him by the wrist and sucked it off them, then I turned him and licked the grazes I'd made, and he pulled away from me, and I thought he was going to get up and tell me to get lost but he didn't. He got out the tube of lube and threw it at me, and he lay on his back and he opened his legs.

I leaned down over him and kissed him.

"Sorry," I said.

"No, you're not."

_Yes I am_, I thought, and I said, "No, I'm not."

"Bastard."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

I didn't stop kissing him all the while I was lubing him. When he gasped, it was my air he gasped. My lips pressed his lips as my fingers circled his rim, and my tongue licked the inside of his cheek as my fingers pushed inside him, and his mouth yawned wide for me as I stretched him open. His moans vibrated on my tongue.

I could hardly get into him at first. He was tight, and I guess I was out of practice because I couldn't get the angle right and I think I hurt him – I was looking at his face and he flinched – so I waited and he breathed and he curled his legs around my back and levered himself so his pelvis tilted a little, and when I felt him relax around me I had him and he took me.

The heat of him I'd remembered, but not the chaos – the sounds, the sweat, the smells. The sounds I made that were out of my control. His cries that felt to me like a reward.

He held my face as I fucked him, with both hands at first and then with one as he moved his other hand to his dick. I never once looked away from his eyes.

I held off till his face contorted and I felt a warm spatter of cum hit my belly as his body spasmed and seized me, and I came hard into him.

When I'd eased out of him I collapsed beside him for a minute as we got our breath back. We weren't touching, but we both turned our heads to look at each other at the same time, and we both started laughing.

He was under the cover when I came back from getting rid of the condom, and I got in with him.

"You alright?"

"I am now," he said, and he kissed me, and I felt like I was the man he wanted me to be: the man he'd been waiting for.


	4. Chapter 4

It used to be Ste who would fall asleep first after they'd fucked, but not this time, even though he hadn't slept last night because he'd been too anxious about seeing Brendan for the first time. He was exhausted now, from the dread and the rows and the relief and the sex, but his was head buzzing and he had lain, eyes closed, listening to Brendan's breaths slowing into sleep. Ste had opened his eyes then and looked at him. It was early still, and there was just enough left of the thin evening light to let him examine the details of Brendan's face.

He was pale. He always was, but now that he was lying still and expressionless, and he'd lost the colour he'd had when Ste had looked up at him as they'd chased each other to climax, there was a greyness to his skin that it never used to have.

Ste propped himself up on his elbow and stroked a fingertip along the line of Brendan's moustache, imagining where it would end if the beard wasn't there. Brendan shifted a little in his sleep, and Ste moved his hand away.

Brendan looked older, Ste thought, as if more time had passed for him than the two and a half years they'd been apart. He'd be thirty-five in a few weeks' time, but he looked more than that. There were white hairs here and there in the dark brown of his beard, and the lines around his eyes and across his forehead were deeper than before. Ste didn't mind that, though, as long as Brendan was alright; he'd always liked him being older, it had made him feel safe even when he wasn't. It was funny. Even after all the danger he'd been put in by Brendan and by Brendan's enemies, it was only when he'd gone that Ste had felt unprotected. Having a dad now – a nice dad, a real dad – was good, mostly, but Danny didn't come from Ste's world and didn't have a clue what had to be done sometimes to survive in it. If Ste was scared and needed someone to tell him, like a parent to a child, that everything was going to be okay, Danny might know what to say, but Brendan would know what to do.

Brendan might have got older but his body, from what Ste had seen and felt of it, was better than ever. His waist was narrower than it had been and the muscles of his stomach were hard, and his chest and shoulders and arms seemed massive. It was a shock to the system, being with a man like this after those years without him, and Ste's body felt different too. Having Brendan beside him, or on him, or in him, changed it. It wasn't just the physical things, although there were already plenty of those – scratches and bites, a kind of post-workout tiredness in his muscles, soreness, a dull ache inside his pelvis – but also something in the way he thought about it. His body might be scrawny, it might not be all that, but it was wanted again. It was ferociously, scarily wanted, and Ste had forgotten what that felt like.

He realised he was hungry now; he hadn't been able to face eating anything all day waiting for Brendan to arrive. He got quietly out of bed and went to the bathroom and washed himself, and then he stood in the kitchen and ate a bowl of cereal. If Brendan was awake when he went back into the bedroom he would ask him if he wanted anything to eat; but he wasn't, so Ste slipped into bed without disturbing him.

:::::::

Brendan slept long into the night, and when he woke up he was disorientated for a moment. He was only just beginning to adjust to sleeping in his new flat, but now he was somewhere else and there was someone with him, and he remembered, and he reached out to him in the dark.

"Steven." He shook Ste gently by the shoulder. "Steven."

Ste had eventually fallen asleep, deeply, and Brendan's voice seemed to be in his dream at first. The second _Steven_ woke him, and he mumbled, "Mm?" and then, "Bren," as he rolled onto his side to face him.

"Didn't mean to wake you."

"You said my name, though."

"Nah. You must'a been dreaming."

"About you," Ste said, and he smiled and pressed his lips against Brendan's, and felt Brendan's hand come up to cradle his head.

"You taste of Coco Pops."

"I was hungry. D'you want some?"

"I'm good. You been up, then?"

"Only for a minute. You was asleep."

Brendan hugged Ste closer; Ste stroked his back.

It was Ste who moved things on, making space between their bodies for his hand to find Brendan's cock. It felt thick and heavy, and when his fingers circled the root of it he could feel it coming alive. Brendan's hand fumbled its way down to return the favour, and his sleepy kisses became purposeful.

In prison, Brendan used to shut his eyes when the lad in the library was giving him a handjob, and try to imagine that the hands were Ste's. It never worked, not entirely: even back in the days when they'd had to make do sometimes with a stolen five minutes in the toilets in Chez Chez, Ste had known how Brendan liked it. Brendan would know his touch anywhere. In prison it was an approximation, it was all there was and it was necessary, but when he had held that lad's head against his chest as they jerked each other off, the stifled sounds he'd made were wrong, and the inexactitude of his touch was wrong, and the scent of his hair was wrong.

He held Ste's bottom lip between his teeth, and sucked it, and he could feel his moustache becoming wet with Ste's saliva.

Brendan didn't know what this was – he didn't know if they were going to lie here kissing and wanking until they brought each other off, or if this was foreplay. Better find out. He bristled his beard across Ste's cheek to say into his ear, "You wanna..?"

Ste's answer was a hot-tongued kiss.

Brendan pushed him onto his back, but Ste stopped him from rolling onto him.

"We better use..."

"Yeah." Brendan got a condom from the drawer and sat on the edge of the bed to put it on.

Ste put his arms around him from behind and kissed his shoulder.

"Only till I've been and got checked, right. I was dead careful, Brendan, but – "

"Yeah, be on the safe side." Brendan didn't want to think of what Ste had done and who he'd done it with. "We'll both go."

"Then we can get back to normal."

Brendan reached for the lube, and when he turned around again, Ste was lying face down. Brendan ran his fingers down his spine.

"Taking you from behind, am I?" He stroked Ste's bum, then squeezed out a blob of lube and fingered it onto him. "Good lad."

"Use lots."

"I hurt you before? You still wanna?"

"I'm not used to..." Ste blushed, and hoped Brendan couldn't see in the dark. "Use lots."

Brendan emptied the tube into his hand, and took his time.

Ste felt full of him, as if his insides were rearranging themselves around him. Brendan's whole body weighed down on his back, and with each slow slide into him that Brendan made, Ste's cock rubbed stiffly against the mattress – enough friction to make his fingers curl and scratch at the pillow. Brendan's mouth was at his shoulder, his neck. Ste felt his teeth sometimes, and sometimes his tongue, and sometimes his hot breaths. Brendan sounded like an animal, panting and grunting, a million miles from the clever man who used long words that Ste didn't understand, and who knew about all kinds of things that Ste didn't know. Ste felt overpowered by him in a way he never had with anyone else, but he felt more powerful than he ever had with anyone else because it was his power that turned Brendan from that man into this one.

Brendan gripped Ste's wrists on the pillow. He felt Ste's muscles tighten reflexively against him as he sped up, until Ste lifted his arse and angled himself to let him in deeper.

The sound Brendan made as he came seemed to vibrate out of his chest so that Ste felt it in his ribcage and then felt it everywhere as he came too. Brendan stayed in him and sucked a bruise into his neck.

"Don't," Ste said when Brendan had withdrawn and had got up to go and get rid of the condom. "Don't go, right, just put it in a tissue."

Brendan sat back down and pulled it off and wrapped it in a tissue and dropped it on the floor. He got back into bed.

"If I tread on that when I get up..."

"I didn't say put it on the floor, did I?" Ste shuffled away from the wet patch on the mattress to share Brendan's side of the bed, and cuddled up against his side.

Brendan held Ste's flaccid cock for a moment. He liked it like that, emptied and soft, as much as he liked it all fired up; and he liked that Ste got embarrassed if he touched it after he'd come, belying his shamelessness a few moments before.

"Cute, ain't it?" He let Ste squirm.

"Shut up." Ste yanked Brendan's hand off him.

Brendan laughed, and Ste hated him for laughing at him, and loved how his laughter rumbled in his chest.

"I'll shut up, then." Brendan pulled the cover up to their shoulders and wrapped his arms around Ste, and they lay in silence.

"You're like an animal," Ste said after a while, and as he said it he remembered calling him an animal once before, and in case Brendan remembered it too and remembered the feeling behind it that day, he stroked his chest and smiled and said, "All furry, in't you," and kissed his beard.

Brendan turned his head to look at him.

"This is us now, Steven, okay? This... This is us."

He held his breath then, until Ste nodded his head and answered him.

"This is us."

* * *

_Brendan_

Sex was always the easy part for us. We might dance around it, run out on each other for one reason or another so the danger of giving in to it was postponed, but if we both let ourselves do it, it was always good. Better than good, even when we were sad or scared or angry or sorry: the minute we got our hands on each other nothing else mattered. It was the same when I came back for him this last time. His body, my body, they fit, you know? It was reassuring finding out that we still did it for each other as much as ever, but it didn't necessarily mean everything else was going to be easy; it just meant that the sex still was.

There was a lot of catching up to do. Two and a half years' worth of catching up, and I thought maybe he'd want to sit down and go through it all – _a proper talk_ is his Holy Grail, always was – but I'd done so much talking inside that the idea of it made me antsy. Plus, much as I itched to know everything he'd been up to, I was scared I'd hear something I wouldn't be able to get out of my head, something about the men he'd been with. Some of the talking I'd done was in the course of the anger management counselling they gave me, and I'd discovered – surprise surprise – that one of my _triggers_ was jealousy. Obviously sooner or later the techniques I'd learnt would be put to the test out here in the real world, but there was no point in setting myself up for a fall by finding out things to get jealous about.

So I shied away from the_ proper talk_, and to be honest I don't think Steven wanted it either. That was a surprise to me, but I was realising slowly that there was stuff he'd been through since I'd been gone that he was reluctant to tell me about, and it wasn't just the stuff that would likely make me jealous. Things we needed to find out about each other began to come out bit by bit, though, sometimes when one of us bit the bullet and asked questions, and sometimes when one of us needed to say something.

We were in my car one day, early on. I was taking him to see my flat, and he went quiet for a bit so I knew something was coming, and then he asked me, "Brendan? How come you only got five years for killing Seamus? Why didn't you get life for it?"

"Got a reduced sentence for admitting it, didn't I."

"Right. But I thought that for murder they always – "

"It was manslaughter, not murder. Fuck." I'd missed my turning. "Gotta do a fucking U-turn."

"How come?"

"Missed the fucking turning."

"No, how come it was manslaughter?"

"Mitigating circumstances." I glanced at him; he was frowning, like it still didn't make sense to him. Fuck. "Diminished responsibility, so."

"That's like when someone's... like, not knowing what they're doing."

"Got me a short sentence, so I ain't complaining."

"Right."

I could see what I was doing. I was wanting to let Steven think I'd tricked them, you know, fooled them into believing the balance of my mind was disturbed, as they say, just so they'd go easy on me. I tried to kid myself that I was doing it to protect Steven from the truth, but I wasn't. I was protecting myself: I was scared he'd find out I was officially a headcase, and stop wanting me.

I had to man up.

"It was post-traumatic stress disorder," I told him, and I kept my eyes straight ahead. "That's what they reckoned I had, that's what they reckoned made me kill my dad."

"But you didn't kill your dad, though."

"No. But I still had it, Steven." I pulled in to the side of the road and switched off the engine.

"Are we here?"

"No. I just need to... They were right, Steven. I think. I think they were right, it's what I had, it's what made me... what made me do the things I did, or some of them. Not that it's an excuse, okay? I ain't making excuses, I just... It came from what my dad did to me, and I should'a got help with it years ago, and if I had I would'a never... Maybe I would'a never..."

"So you told them, Brendan? You told someone about it, about what your dad done, and that's how they knew you was – ?"

"A fuck-up, yeah."

"_Damaged_. That's what I was gonna say." He paused, and all I could think was _damaged goods_, and how a man like Steven had no need to stick with a man like me. And then he said, "I'm so proud of you for telling someone about it, Brendan. It's dead brave."

Sometimes I underestimate him. Sometimes the size of his heart takes me by surprise.

"Thank you," I said, and I started the car and pulled out, and I almost got my wing mirror sliced off because I forgot to look to see if anything was coming.

I had to get a grip.

"Did you get some help?" Steven asked after he'd had a few minutes to think. "You know, for the post-distress... post-disorder..."

"PTSD. Yeah, they sent me to see someone."

"Like, a counsellor?"

"Yeah."

There I was again, protecting myself from what Steven might think of me. _Counsellor_ sounded safe; _psychiatrist_ said psycho.

That was the rest of the talking I did in prison, see: it wasn't just anger management – that wasn't until nearly the end of my stretch. At the beginning, and for months and months, it was a fully fledged psychiatrist I had to see. I was lucky, apparently. Most of the time if someone pleads diminished responsibility but they're not cracked enough to end up in a secure hospital, they might get a few sessions with a prison shrink but then they'll most likely get put on heavy meds and left to get on with it like everyone else. I'd already had the diagnosis of PTSD from the psychiatrist who did the report for the sentencing judge, so I thought I wouldn't have to do any more talking, and when I was sent to the psychiatrist when I started my term I thought it was going to be a formality.

He had a file in front of him, and first thing he said was he had a special interest in _post traumatic stress disorder in adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse_. He was writing a paper on it or something. Like I said, I was lucky: I just didn't feel it.

All I said in that first session was yes and no and fuck off, so he talked instead, explained what the point of me seeing him might be, and then we were getting towards the end of it and he said something about abuse. About how the abuser can be dead and gone but he's still abusing you because you're still seeing yourself in the way he wanted you to – and then I started crying, howling like a baby. After that, I talked, about everything I'd told the pre-sentence shrink and more.

I guess it helped. It made the nightmares worse at first, but then it made them less. It might have helped more if I hadn't had to censor everything I said before I said it so I didn't let slip about any of the people I'd disposed of, or about the fact it was my sister that killed my dad. But I think getting my dad's secrets out into the light took a little bit of their power away. So yes, it helped.

"What about Cheryl?" Steven had been silent again, but his mind must have been turning over just like mine was.

"What about her?"

"Would she only of got five years? I mean, she'd just found out what your dad did, she'd just seen that video. That was _traumatic_, weren't it? What if she'd told the truth, Brendan? That would be the whatsit, diminished responsibility, wouldn't it? It's true, right, cos she wouldn'a done it if she was in her right mind. What if she'd admitted it, Brendan? If she'd gone to prison for what she did, she'd be out now anyway, wouldn't she, and you and me would'a been together all this time, and everything that's happened while you weren't here – "

"I couldn't let her do that, Steven. I couldn't take that chance. D'you think I could'a lived my life knowing she was locked away?"

"She lived her life, didn't she, knowing you was locked away."

"Steven – "

"And anyway, what if the police had killed you when they shot you? Cos I know that's what you wanted. I've thought about it, and I know. That's why you pointed that gun at them, cos you wanted to make them kill you. I've thought about it, right. You would'a died, and I'd never ever see you again."

"I thought I wouldn't ever see you again either way, though, didn't I? Okay, you're right, I wanted to die, because I couldn't – " _Because I couldn't live my life without you._

"Because you couldn't stand the thought of prison."

"I'm sorry, Steven."

We didn't speak again until we got out of the car, and then Steven said, "Can you remember how to make that cocktail?"

"What? What cocktail?"

"_Sorry, Steven_."

"I'll make you a bucketful," I told him, and he shook his head and kissed me.

:::::::

Steven was working as a chef, at a restaurant in the village. He wasn't going to work when we first got back together because the place was closed for refurbishment, but that was his job now, a few shifts a week cooking for wages. I wanted to know what happened to the deli but he wouldn't tell me much, only that he'd walked out not long after I went away and then somehow he never got his hands on it again. I was pissed off when I heard that, and we had a row about it, obviously. He thought I was mad about it because of my eighty grand, but it wasn't that. I was mad because all the time I was inside I was thinking at least I'd left him with that security for him and Leah and Lucas, and it turned out he had nothing.

I could have helped him if I'd known. I've got money. Some of it wasn't the kind of money I could get at when I was in prison, but most of it was legitimate: it came from the sale of the club and of the flats, and I'd tied some of it up in trust for my boys but there was still plenty that Steven could have had. He could have had every last penny, if I'd known he wasn't okay. My fault, I guess, for not making Chez tell me what she knew of how he was, and for not making her find out what she didn't know. _Sorry, Steven_.

I had money, but I couldn't be sitting on my arse while Steven went out to work. Starting over was going to be hard though. For one thing, I didn't know what I was going to start over _as_. I couldn't risk getting back into the world I used to inhabit, because being out on licence I could find myself back serving the rest of my sentence if I got so much as a parking ticket, and besides, I had to prove myself not just to Steven but to Amy. She had his kids. They seemed to be sharing them, her and Steven, but as soon as she got a sniff of me being back it would be like before, only this time I wasn't guilty only of what she knew I'd done to Steven and of whatever misdeeds she always imagined I'd committed. Now, I was a convicted killer, and no mother would think I was stepdad material. I didn't know what we were going to do to persuade her that Leah and Lucas would be safe with us, but I knew I couldn't do anything that would give her extra ammunition.

I thought about buying something, another club or a pub, and getting started that way, but I had in my head an idea – a dream, you might say – that in two and a half years' time when I'd be free to leave the UK, we would up sticks and move to Dublin and start building a life there. I wanted to hold on to my money for that, and not risk it in a business that might or might not succeed.

So it looked like I was going to have to look for a job.

Yep.

Steven said he would ask around in the village, but I said no. I was avoiding the place, driving out in the other direction whenever I left his flat. There was nothing for me there except ghosts. The club's name had changed and its owners had changed two or three times, Steven said, but even so I couldn't think about the place without seeing my dad coming for me, the gunshot, and him lying bleeding out on the floor. Besides, it wasn't like I knew anyone any more. There'd be the odd one or two, but no one who was likely to be glad to see me, and I had no desire to go back.

One true friend I'd had, in the two years I'd lived there, but she was six thousand miles away now. Anne. And she _was_ a true friend: apart from Cheryl and Nate – and Eileen on one occasion – she was the only visitor I had. Anne was over from the States once and she asked for a visiting order, and in she came in jeans and trainers, a ponytail and a baseball cap, looking all of fifteen years old. All heartbroken brown eyes when she saw me, and I could tell she was scared – I guess she was reminded of her own time in prison – but she had guts, that wee girl, and she didn't judge me even though she thought I'd killed Seamus. I wanted to tell her the truth but you can't burden people with a thing like that, so instead I told her to tell me about how life was treating her, and she filled my head with the warmth of the Californian sun.

When she was going, she said she'd come again before she flew back home, and she said, _I'll come as Mitzeee next time if you like. Give them something to talk about_. And she gave me a smile and a wink, and when she came back two weeks later her heels were sky high and so was her hemline, and there wasn't a pair of eyes that wasn't on her. She gave me a kiss right on the mouth, and she did that thing girls do where they wipe their lipstick off your lips with their thumb, and Jesus, everyone – inmates, wardens, even the fucking governor – looked at me a whole new way after that.

Like I said, I had no reason to want to return to the village, and plenty to keep me away. I'd have to look elsewhere for some kind of work, and it wasn't as if someone with my record was likely to walk into employment, so I racked my brain for anyone I knew who might be able to help. The only one I could come up with who wasn't knee deep in the underworld was someone I knew from way back.

Deborah had worked for me – or I should say _with_ me, as we both worked for Danny Houston – in the club I ran in Liverpool back in the day. Her job was to be the legitimate face of the business, and god love her, the worst she ever did was turn a blind eye to what really went on. The club had been sold off after Houston was found floating, and I'd heard that Deborah had bought it and relaunched it. I'd kept my ears open at the time, and the word was that the place was off the circuit: the kind of people I used to do business with no longer did business there. It was clean.

I drove up one afternoon when Steven was out doing a shift in the restaurant. I didn't even know if Deborah still ran the place, but as soon as I walked into it I could tell. She'd got it all set up to be some kind of café during the day, just like she'd always wanted. It was busy, but I heard her laugh and then I saw her there standing talking to a bunch of people at one of the tables. I waited for her to see me.

Fair play to her, she wiped the shock off her face pretty fast.

"Brendan... Come and sit down, love."

She found us a table in a booth, and she got us a coffee.

"You ain't changed, Deborah."

"Yeah, right. You always did have the chat, Brendan. Got my fiftieth coming up, haven't I."

"Well, you're looking good on it. How's the family?"

"They're really good, last one's left home now. Your boys doing okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, think so. I ain't seen them, but..."

"I heard about your trouble, Brendan."

Good. Smalltalk was over.

I picked her brains about her kind of circles. I told her I didn't want to get into conversations with the people in my old circles, because I needed to stay legit now. I told her I'd cleaned up my act even before I got arrested, but my past had come back to haunt me.

"I know I can do it, Deborah, you know? I got a second chance now, and I'm not gonna blow it."

"You seem different, Brendan. Not just the beard. It's been ages, maybe that's all it is."

We hadn't seen each other since the day I'd called in to see her when I first moved over from Belfast to stay with Cheryl.

"Five years," I said. "Lot's happened since then. I've gone straight, for one."

"Straight? That's not what I heard." She was smiling.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. You know how you hear things."

"Really." I gulped at my coffee.

"Course it's obvious now, when I think back. I mean, I never heard you'd tried it on with any of the barmaids, and I just thought it was because you were a gentleman, only I did used to wonder about one of the boys, you know, little – "

"Anyhow, so if..."

"Sorry. Yeah, if I hear of anyone wanting a manager – I'll put a word in for you and I'll give you a call."

"Thanks, sweetheart, I appreciate it."

We exchanged numbers and she walked with me to my car.

"So Brendan, have you got somebody... you know, someone at home waiting for you?"

"I have, yeah."

"You didn't waste much time did you? Or is it someone from before you went away?"

"It's... _He_ is someone from before."

"Sounds like a keeper, if he's stuck around knowing all's you've done."

"Yeah. Yeah, he is."

:::::::

We were in bed.

"Steven, you know what I said about... about when I talked to someone in prison about my dad and all?"

"A counsellor, yeah."

"It wasn't just a counsellor, it was a psychiatrist."

I waited but he didn't say anything. I switched on the bedside lamp and looked at him.

"As long as it helped," he said. "Did it help?"

"Yeah, it helped. I had counselling too though, Steven, okay? Anger management, like you had. I asked for it, I had to keep on asking till they gave it to me."

"Good." Steven kissed me on the cheek.

"I just wanted you to know."

"Okay." He paused, and then he said, "Will you turn the light off please?"

I did as he asked. I thought he'd had enough talking and wanted to get to sleep.

"Night, then."

"Brendan?" It was that intonation again, like he had something to ask or something to say.

"What is it?"

"You know my mum died?"

"Yeah. Yeah, Chez told me. Cancer, she said – she said you had her home here at the end. That was..." I remembered the nasty little woman who took my money to stay away from her son. "That was good of you."

"It weren't." His voice was small and tight, and I realised he'd asked me to turn off the light because he didn't want me to see him while he was saying whatever he was going to say. "It weren't good of me, and it weren't... it weren't cancer that killed her."

"What are you talking about, Steven?" I turned to him and tried to make out his features but it was too dark. I kissed his bare shoulder.

"I mean, she had cancer, yeah, but I done it. I killed her, Brendan. She asked me to, and I done it."

"What you saying? You saying you... you helped her, yeah?"

"Yeah. Yeah. She weren't strong enough, see, and she couldn't stand being alive any more, and she begged me, right, and I didn't know what to do."

Jesus. He'd had all this to face on his own. All this was in his head now, and always would be, and I hadn't been there to save him from it.

"Steven – "

"If you'd been here, Brendan..." He was raging, and then he was crying. "If you'd been here, you would'a known what to do, you could'a told me what to do, but you weren't here, and I done it. I killed my mum."

"I'm sorry." I got hold of him and I pulled him into my arms, even though he fought me. "I wish I'd been here, Steven. I wish I'd been here when you needed me. I never would'a let you do it."

"You think I was wrong?" There was panic in his voice, and his breaths were coming out in sobs. "You think I shouldn'a done it, you think I'm a – "

"No. No, baby. I would'a done it for you."


	5. Chapter 5

There were things Ste hadn't told Brendan. He hadn't told him about the times he'd been threatened, the times he'd been beaten up; the people who'd threatened him and beaten him up. He hadn't told him anything about Doug, only that he was gone. He hadn't told him that he'd lost his home, that he'd been left with almost nothing and that he'd not long moved back here when Brendan came back. Brendan must think that he'd been doing alright, with all the newish furniture and painted walls, but all of that had been done by the landlord while Ste was living in other places.

He had told him he'd been dealing drugs. Brendan seemed sad about it more than angry; Ste supposed he understood the need to get money for the kids, and anyway he'd stopped doing it ages ago so it wasn't like he was going to get arrested for it now. What Ste hadn't told him was that there was still a debt he was paying off, and the money he owed never seemed to get any less.

:::::::

"After the weekend," Ste said, keeping his voice down so Brendan wouldn't hear that he was on the phone. "I get paid on Friday but I can't get it out the bank till Monday cos I'm going to see me kids."

"It was due today."

"I can't give you what I haven't got, can I?"

He waited, so long that he thought the phone had gone dead, and then the response came.

"Seeing as I like you, Ste, I'll forget that it's late. I'm not running around after you, though. You can bring it to me."

"Right." Better be polite – he couldn't afford not to be. "_Thanks_. What's the – ?"

"I'll text you."

Ste looked at his phone: _Call ended_.

"Problem, Steven?"

Brendan's voice made Ste jump.

"Bloody hell, Brendan, you wanna give me a heart attack?"

"Who was it?"

"Nobody."

"Steven." Brendan came into the kitchen, and Ste turned and stared out of the window. "Who was it? It sounded like they – "

"You shouldn'a been listening."

"If you're in trouble, I need you to tell me, okay?"

"No. No, cos you'll only make things worse."

"Tell me."

Ste didn't want to tell him; he didn't want Brendan to think he couldn't cope. Only, he remembered how it felt when he told him that he'd helped his mum to die: he remembered how, with Brendan's arms around him, he'd felt free of it for the first time since it had happened.

He turned to face him.

"Promise you won't kick off, yeah? You won't do anything stupid or... cos if you get arrested you'll be back inside, and I can't... You can't..."

"I promise. Now tell me."

"There's this bloke, and I owe him money."

"Okay."

"I had to borrow it cos I owed this dealer, right, and I been paying it off, but it's..."

"A loan shark, is it?"

"No. Not a proper one, no, it's just this bloke, like, a mate of a mate. But he's..."

"He's what?"

"Nasty. I didn't know he was or I wouldn'a borrowed off him, would I?"

"He hurt you?" Brendan could feel the hairs spiking on the back of his neck.

"No. But he throws his weight around, he's that sort, and I can't not pay him."

"How much did you borrow?"

"A thousand." Ste watched Brendan's face for a reaction, but there was none.

"And how much do you owe now?"

"A thousand."

"But you been paying him, yeah? How much?"

"Two hundred a month." Ste swallowed. "For a few months."

"Okay." Brendan thought for a moment. "You're paying him on Monday, yeah?"

"Yeah." Ste's phone chimed, and he checked the message. "That's him, that's his address where I've got to take it to him."

"Okay, Steven. What's gonna happen is, I'm gonna give you the money – a grand – and you're going to give it to him, and then it's over."

"But it won't be over though, will it? Cos he don't want it all in one go, he wants me to keep paying him and paying him."

Brendan took Ste's face in his hands.

"He won't say no to a grand. It's gonna be okay, I promise."

:::::::

It was like before: Ste wasn't telling Amy that he was back with Brendan. He was keeping her at bay telling her that his shifts at the restaurant meant he couldn't have the kids to stay at the weekends. Instead, he'd been getting the coach up to Manchester on Sundays and spending the day with them, just so that Leah and Lucas wouldn't see Brendan and he wouldn't have to tell them to lie to their mother. He wouldn't do that again, not ever.

Brendan had offered to go back to his own rented flat for the weekend so the kids could come down to Ste's, but Ste wouldn't let him. Brendan was living with him now. He had a contract for the other place so he was stuck with it, but it wasn't his home because his home was with Ste.

Ste knew it hurt Brendan and it worried him knowing that he was keeping it from Amy, but Brendan wasn't pushing him to tell her. He must know, like Ste did, that she could keep the children away if she wanted. But things couldn't go on like this, and Ste had made up his mind to tell her. Maybe it was the lies that made her take them away last time, and if he was up front with her and explained that things were different now, she'd give Brendan a chance. Or maybe he was kidding himself.

"Amy, can I have a word?" Ste had tucked the kids into bed, and had gone and found Amy in her living room. "In private."

Amy's boyfriend stood up to go, but she said, "No, it's okay, we'll go in the other room." Ste followed her into the bedroom and she sat down on the bed. "What's so _private_, Ste?"

Ste closed the bedroom door and perched on the dressing table stool.

"Erm..."

"Come on. You'll miss your bus in a minute."

"I'll get the later one." Ste looked down at his hands, and then at Amy. "Brendan's back."

"Back? He's out of prison, you mean? Or he's... No, Steven, don't tell me he's back with you."

"Yeah."

"I don't believe this! What did he do, just come knocking on your door and you threw your life away and took him back?"

"What life, Amy? What life? I didn't have a life when he was gone."

"You did! You had your job, your kids, your boyfriend..."

"I've still got me job. I've still got me kids, Ames, cos they're mine, right, and you never liked me boyfriend anyway, so..."

"Yeah, and I don't like this one either. Ste, he's a murderer."

"Yeah, well, so am I so we're well suited in't we."

"You're not a murderer, Ste, you can't compare what you did for your mum to what that man's done."

"He didn't do it anyway, all them things he said he done. It was only one, that's why he's out now."

"_Only one_? Will you listen to yourself? He's already got into your head, hasn't he? How long's he been back?"

"Few weeks."

"So that's why you haven't had the kids down."

"Yeah. But only cos I knew you'd kick off."

"Can you blame me? Look at the world he lives in. Look at Walker – he came for all of you because of Brendan. How do you know that's not going to happen again?"

"Walker's dead though, in't he," Ste said, then he added hastily, "He killed himself."

"What if there are other Walkers?"

"No, cos his brother died too anyway."

"I don't mean... I mean, Brendan makes enemies. Oh, Ste, I know you love him, but he's bad news. He always will be, and I can't believe you're putting him before our kids."

Ste stood up and stood over Amy.

"Don't you dare. Right, don't you dare. I'm telling you, the kids will be fine with us – better than fine, cos d'you know what? I'm happy now. Yeah, and that's got to be good for the kids, cos when he was away, I forgot what it was like to be happy, and how can I make me kids happy if I in't happy meself?"

"Steven, calm down."

"I am calm." Ste concentrated on his breathing, and swallowed the lump in his throat. "I am calm, see. Look, Amy, Brendan's not a gangster, he never was. He's not sold drugs for years, he stopped before he went away and nobody was even bothered, nobody went after him about it when he gave it up. Walker was after him cos he was a nutter, but he's gone now, and there's no one else who gives a... there's no one else who's got it in for Brendan. Please, Ames. Please."

He sat down on the bed next to Amy and rubbed at his eyes.

"Have you forgotten all the things he did to you though, Ste?" Amy spoke gently. "He hurt you, over and over again. How do you know he won't do that again?"

"I know he won't. I know, right, cos he's different now, he's done anger management in prison, and you know it works. You gave me a second chance, Amy, didn't you? And I never hurt you after, did I, and Brendan's the same. And the kids – he's never, ever hurt them even before he did anger management, and he never would. On my life, he never would. D'you think I'd be with him if I thought he'd hurt them? I wouldn't. I wouldn't."

"I'm not worried about him hurting the kids. I know they... they liked him."

"Yeah, they did. And he's not gonna hurt me either, I know he won't." He watched Amy roll her eyes. "He won't! He's... there's things you don't know, things I didn't know till the day before they took him, and it... it was in the way, in his head, but it's not now. He's told me, and he's told a... a counsellor in prison, and it's gone now. I mean, it's still there, but it dun't scare him now, right, it dun't freak him out and make him... make him scared of being loved."

Amy had searched online for anything she could find about the case. She had seen what the charges were: the manslaughter of Seamus Brady, the firearm possession. She had kept looking every day to find the other charges, the ones Ste had told her Brendan would face because he had confessed to killing five people, but nothing came, and the next thing she had read, weeks later, was that he had pleaded guilty to manslaughter due to diminished responsibility. Amy had tried all she could to find out more, but the grounds for the diminished responsibility were never released. She'd guessed that Brendan had done a deal, given them some information on someone else they were after to get a lesser sentence for himself, but from what Ste was saying now it sounded like she'd guessed wrong. She didn't know now what it could be.

All that had been left for her to find out back then was the sentence, and when that had come, it had filled her with dread. She had waited then for Ste to tell her what she already knew, that it wasn't life after all, that Brendan hadn't done all the things he'd said he had, and that he would be away for five years – less, probably. But Ste had never said anything, and Amy had realised gradually that he really didn't know. She had let it stay that way, and kept quiet. She didn't want him to put his life on hold waiting for Brendan, and she'd hoped that when Brendan got out he would disappear and mess with some other man's life.

Now though, with Ste here telling her that they were together again, Amy realised she had never believed – not for one single moment – that Brendan wouldn't come back for him.

"What was it, Ste?"

"What was what?"

"The thing he told you. The thing that makes you think he won't freak out any more."

"I can't say."

"How can I decide if I'm gonna let my kids be around him if I don't know what's got you so convinced?"

"You saying you would let them?"

"I'm saying I might."

This was a lifeline. Ste had imagined Leah and Lucas being kept away until they were grown up, but here was Amy offering the possibility of the life he'd hardly dared hope for – him, Brendan, Leah and Lucas, a proper family.

"You can't ever tell him I told you though. You can't tell anyone, right, you've got to promise."

"Why? You scared what he'd do?"

"No! I'm not scared of him, Amy. It's just – it kills him, right. He's been scared his whole life of what people would think of him, you know, how they'd look at him if they knew. He thought... he thought I'd stop wanting him. So I can't tell you unless you promise."

"I promise. You're scaring me now."

Ste reached for her hand and held it.

"It was his dad. He... when Brendan was eight, his dad started... raping him, and he did it for years, Amy. Eight years old, that's our Leah's age. He was eight."

There was a silence, until Amy said, "Do you believe him?"

"What?" Ste dropped her hand.

"I just mean, you don't think he just said it to get off?"

"No! He was terrified of no one believing him, right, he never told no one when he was a kid cos he was scared they'd only believe his dad. I can't believe you said that. Course I believed him. Do you think Brendan would make up a thing like that about himself? It killed him. It... it killed him."

"I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. Come here." Amy put her arms around Ste and felt him shaking. "I believe you. I believe him."

"He never got help, see, so he didn't know how to be normal, and then he got PS... PTSD, and that's why he done what he done to..." Ste stopped, and concentrated on the lie he had to tell in the middle of all this truth. "...To his dad, when his dad tried to... But he's got help now. He saw someone in prison, and it's not hurting him any more." He was quiet for a minute, then he said, "His dad confessed. It was on video, so even if you hate Brendan, you've got to believe him."

"I said I believe you."

"Good." Ste wiped his eyes on his sleeve.

"You'll miss the next bus if you're not careful."

"What about the kids, Amy? What you gonna do?"

"I'll ask them. If they're okay with seeing him, we'll try it, just to see how it goes. But you've got to promise me there's no more drugs with either of you – "

"You know I only done that when he was away. I'm no good without him, am I."

"And no more psychos."

"I told you, Amy, he dun't hang around with weirdos any more."

* * *

_Brendan_

I got the address from Steven's phone.

It was obvious the guy was small time. The block of flats he lived in was a dive, and when he opened the door (_Delivery for you_, I said, and it worked like _Open Sesame_) and I shouldered my way past him, it was hard to discern exactly what he'd been spending Steven's money on.

"Oi, what the fuck d'you think you're doing?"

The guy was young, and he smelt of panic, but I could see why Steven was scared of him. He wasn't big but he was muscular – wiry I guess you'd say – and he had a sharp face and scars that said he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

"We got a mutual acquaintance, Anthony. It is Anthony, isn't it?" _Ant_, it had said in Steven's phone.

"Ant," said Anthony. "What _acquaintance_? Who the fuck are you?"

I wandered around the room getting a feel for this character. There were a couple of photographs on the windowsill, and I picked one of them up.

"This your mammy, Anthony?" I waited for an answer, but I didn't get one. "Okay. We're not doing smalltalk: I get that. So, Steven Hay."

"Who?"

"Don't make the mistake of thinking I'm stupid, Anthony. Steven Hay. _Ste_. You loaned him some money."

"Oh, right, Ste, yeah. What's my business arrangement with him got to do with you?"

"I'm from the Inland Revenue. No? There's no fooling you, I can see that, Anthony." I took the photo out of its frame, folded it up and put it in my pocket. "I won't waste your time – businessman like you must have a busy schedule. Got a proposition for you."

"Look, mate, this is my flat and – "

I pinned him to the wall with a hand on his throat.

"How much he owe you?"

"A grand."

I tightened my grip.

"He did owe you a grand but he's been paying it off. So?"

"Gotta pay interest, ain't he," Ant said.

I let go of him. He wasn't going to give up his income stream easily.

"Here's the thing, Anthony. Steven's a good friend of mine, and when something's bothering him, it bothers me."

"Should've lent him the money yourself then."

"I would'a done only I been away. I been inside, for killing my dad." I flashed my best Jack Nicholson smile. "Here's how this is gonna go. Steven's coming here on Monday, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"He's gonna pay you back what he borrowed – all of it. And you're gonna take that thousand, and you're gonna tell him it's settled, no more debt, no more interest. And then you will never contact him again. You got all that, Anthony?"

"Thousand's not enough. I got debts too."

I frowned at him.

"Am I not making myself clear?" I rammed my fist into his stomach and he doubled over, then I straightened him up and held his head while I talked to him. "You are lucky – _lucky_ – to be getting a thousand on top of what you've already taken from the boy. He's got kids to feed. You're taking food from the mouths of _babies_, my Mustelidae friend. Now, I would take it as a personal affront if you rejected my offer. Okay?"

"Yeah."

"Good lad. I'll see myself out, will I?" I stopped in the doorway. "Thanks for the picture of your mammy, by the way. I'll put her next to my daddy. The photo, I mean, obviously."

It was easy. I'd thought that maybe once I'd shed that skin it was gone, but it turned out I could get back into it. I could make someone fear me. In thirty months behind bars I'd never laid a hand on anyone except in self defence, but a few weeks out and I was punching someone in the gut without blinking. It was disturbing.

I sat in my car when I pulled up back home, and I tried to get my head around it. I hadn't been angry, so the anger management hadn't come into it. I'd been presented with a problem and I had solved it, and there was a part of me that was relieved that I could still do it – that if Steven was in trouble I would still do what it took to get him out of it. I just hoped to god the wannabe loan shark wouldn't let slip to Steven that I'd paid him a visit. Giving the little shit a thousand quid was the convincer for Steven, or I wouldn't have paid him a penny: the whole point was I had to sort it without Steven knowing I'd done it with menaces. I knew I wasn't the same as I used to be, but Steven might think that I was.

When I got inside he wasn't back yet from Manchester, and it was later than usual when he came in. He looked wrung out.

"You okay, Steven? Kids okay, yeah?"

"Yeah, they're fine. Brendan, Amy's... I told her you was back, right, and she says she's still gonna let the kids come, she's not gonna stop us seeing them."

"Jesus. Seriously? _Amy_? She been drinking or what?"

I couldn't believe this: this was what we'd wanted before I went away, when we'd let ourselves dream for five minutes before it all went to shit. It was the kind of news that should have had Steven excited and in my arms, but it was me that had to go to him, and when I held him he clung to me like a child.

"She's well funny when she's drunk though," he said, and his voice was muffled against my chest. "She tried to kiss me once when she'd had a few."

I prised him off me so I could look at him.

"When? When we were together?"

I didn't care, but I wanted to see his face. There was something not right in him, like he'd been upset.

"No, when I was with Doug."

"Ha." I got a smile out of him. "You sure you're okay, Steven?"

"I'm okay, yeah, we just had an argument."

"About me?"

"Yeah. But I told her... I told her you done anger management."

"And that made her okay for the kids to come? That all?"

"Yeah. Well, she was worried about, you know, someone wanting to get back at you for something, but I said you don't go round making enemies no more."

I got the feeling he was keeping something from me, and I hugged him against me again in case he could see in my face that I was doing the same. Maybe that made us quits.

:::::::

I waited in the car for him to come back from giving Anthony my thousand pounds. I stared at the entrance to the block of flats and I stared at Steven when he came out of it, wanting to see if he looked like he'd found out about my little visit.

"Okay?" I asked him when he got in.

"Yeah. He took the money, Brendan, and he said that's it. No more debt, no more interest, that's what he said." He turned to me and smiled, and it was only now that it was over that I realised how much he'd been worried about it. "You were right, Bren."

"I am sometimes." I started the car.

"Thanks for the money. You didn't have to do it."

"Yeah I did. I ain't having little bastards like that taking the piss."

"He weren't taking the piss out of you though, he was taking the piss out of me."

"Same difference," I said, and I glanced at him. He was still smiling.

:::::::

He'd never been to one of these clinics before.

He was all in favour, but when we went inside the walk-in centre he was suddenly all wide eyes and nervous chattering. I can't say it was my favourite way to pass the afternoon, but I'd done it before and I knew it was no big deal, and one of us had to be calm so I was calm.

They called me in first, asked all their questions. _How many sexual partners have you had in the last three months?_ One. They could have asked about the last three years and the answer would have been the same, but for the none-too-memorable McQueen lad. Soon be three years since him too, and that meant it would be three years since Steven got off a plane and came to put me right.

I got through the questions and I got through the swabbing and whatever. When I left the room there was a wee girl hovering outside waiting for me. She was one of the nurses.

"Brendan?" she said. "Your partner's feeling a bit wobbly, so would you mind coming in while we do our stuff?"

I hesitated. I didn't want to hear him listing his sexual conquests, but the nurse must have read my mind because she said she'd already done the questionnaire so it was just the physical stuff to do. I followed her in.

Steven was perched on a chair looking ready to bolt.

"Alright?"

"Yeah. Just feeling a bit..."

"Not to worry," the nurse said. "You can never tell how people are going to react. You might get a great big builder in and he won't stop shaking. It's a bit of a weird experience, but it doesn't hurt. You can tell him that, Brendan."

"Yeah, it's fine. I mean, not fine, but..."

Steven didn't look reassured. The nurse gave me a disappointed look.

I looked away when she did his blood test. Never did like blood. He was okay though – it was the next bit that was bothering him.

"Now just pop your trousers down for me, Ste, and your pants, and hop up on the bed."

He did what he was told.

"Must try that sometime, see if he'll do it for me," I said. "_Pop your trousers down_. No?"

"Your partner's a bit of a comedian is he?" the nurse said to Steven.

"He thinks he is."

She put a pair of gloves on. I stood around like a spare part while she had a look and a feel. She chatted while she did it, like a running commentary, but Steven's chat had dried up and he gripped the bottom of his T-shirt and stared at the ceiling.

"Well, everything looks nice and healthy, but I will just do a little swab to make sure, okay?"

Steven looked at the swab and then at me. I wanted to laugh at his little face but I knew I'd get the cold shoulder for the foreseeable if I did; so I stroked his hair and I told him, "It's okay. Just takes a second, Steven."

There was a pulse in his temple, I could see it beating under the skin. I stroked it with my knuckle and it felt as if it was going at a hundred a minute. Then I stroked his cheek.

"All done." The nurse let Steven zip up. "So, you've said you want us to send your results by text, is that right?"

"Yeah."

"That's fine. So in the mean time, keep using the condoms until you've both got the all clear. Then if you're going to stop using them, we strongly recommend that you always use them if you have any sexual contact with anyone else and – "

"I won't," Steven said.

"Right, but if you do – "

"We won't," I said. Jesus.

"I have to say this to everybody. You just never know what's around the corner, so – "

"Okay," I said, "You've told us."

Jesus.

:::::::

We kissed in the car park. I pulled over on the way home and we kissed in the car. When we got home, we kissed.

Don't know what it was made us so horny, but something must have.

When we got into the bedroom I copped a feel of him through his jeans.

"Glad it was a girl feeling you up," I said.

"Jealous, was you?"

He had that look in his eyes that was meant for after dark. It looked filthier in daylight, and my balls were aching for him.

"Jealous?" I said. "Nah. Might'a been if you'd had the lad I had."

"What?"

"Didn't I tell you? Male nurse. Small hands..."

His first shove took me by surprise and I staggered back a step or two. I was ready for his second one so it didn't move me an inch. The third one, I fell backwards onto the bed.

He knelt over me, one knee between my thighs, and he unbuckled my belt and unbuttoned my jeans.

"Fucking male nurse," he said, and he stood up again and got out of his jeans and boxers, then he clambered on again in his socks and T-shirt and hoodie, and tugged my pants half way down and yanked my cock and balls out.

He had to crawl over me then to get the lube and a rubber out – see, he wasn't organised at all.

"You ready now or what?" I asked him.

"Shut up, you."

He got me hard with his hands. He was rough and he didn't care, and neither did I, and he couldn't get the condom on fast enough, and he slapped the lube onto his arse and onto me, and all the time he was doing that pout that he does and I couldn't take my eyes off him.

He walked forward on his knees and I reached up and pulled his face down so I could kiss him, and then he straightened up again and he angled me into him, and he bit his lip as he forced himself down, and he gasped out, _Fuck. Fuck_. And then he bit his lip again.

"Take your top off, Steven."

He stopped grinding to unzip his hoodie, and shrugged it off, then I got hold of his T-shirt and he bowed forward like a diver and I pulled it off him. He started to unbutton my shirt but I didn't want him to: it felt good being dressed while he was sleek and skinny and naked on top of me, so I held his wrists tight together and he rode me till I came.

I had to let go of him to hold the rubber on when he slid off me, and he planted his hands on my shoulders and kissed me and then he rolled off onto his back. He hadn't come yet, so I gave him what he wanted. I lifted him up the bed so he was resting back on the headboard, and I spread his thighs and got between them, and I sucked his dick and rubbed his balls with my thumbs till his hot cum slid down my throat like cream. I kissed the insides of his thighs. There was a print from my teeth on one of them, and I wondered if the nurse had noticed it; I kind of hoped she had.

I took off the condom and buttoned up, and sat down next to him at the head of the bed. He was cold – all goosebumps and hard nipples – so he cuddled up and I rubbed his arm as I held him. The hairs on it were standing on end and they felt rough under my palm.

"It's amazing, innit, Brendan?"

"What is?"

"Everything. Getting the kids coming for visits."

"Yeah. It's amazing."

He looked up at me.

"Are you gonna talk to Eileen? Cos you've got a right to see your kids."

"One step at a time, Steven, yeah?"

"Declan's old enough to make up his own mind anyway."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

He kissed me, and I pulled his leg across my lap and stroked the curve of his backside.

"He'll come round," he said. "They both will."

"If you say so."

"Anyway, you know what's the next step?"

"What's that then, Steven?"

"You've gotta meet me dad."

"Jesus. Meeting the in-laws now, am I?"

"The _in-laws_?" Steven laughed. "Makes it sound like we're married."

He was right. That was just what it sounded like.


	6. Chapter 6

The kids were excited. They'd both bolted their breakfast, and now they were kneeling on the couch, elbows on the back of it, looking out of the window.

Amy came and stood to the side of them, and reached to pull back the curtain a little more so she could see out too.

"Why don't you go and play for a while?" she asked. "Your daddy could be ages yet, you know what he's like."

"No, we want to look," Leah said.

"We want to look," Lucas said.

"We're looking for Brendan."

Neither of them saw their mother grimace.

Last Sunday just before he went home from visiting the children, Ste had dropped two bombshells. The first was that Brendan was back – less of a bombshell than it would have been if Amy hadn't already found out for herself the shortness of his prison sentence, but still, she had almost managed to kid herself that Brendan would stay away when he got out. The second bombshell was that the man she had known as a bully, a criminal, a manipulative abuser, was himself a victim of abuse, and this revelation had rocked her. It had rarely been far from her thoughts all week, and she had found herself going through all her memories of Brendan, startled by how different they looked through this new prism. She'd known – she must have known – that no one became like him without something igniting it, but she had never wondered about it; she'd never even considered that he was once a child. She'd known he was damaged – she'd felt a degree of pity for him – but she hadn't known the cause and she hadn't cared. Ste was her priority, and her children were.

It didn't change what Brendan had done to Ste, or to anyone else; it didn't erase the fact that he'd been a drug dealer or that he had killed a man. But it explained it, to an extent at least. He'd had horror inflicted on him when he was powerless to stop it, so it wasn't so hard to see that when he achieved some power of his own he wouldn't use it kindly; his father's love was twisted, so it wasn't hard to see why Brendan didn't know what love meant.

In the end it hadn't been this new information about him that had persuaded Amy to let her children see him. It was Ste's promises – that Brendan had learnt to manage his anger just like he had; that the dangers posed by his enemies were all in the past – that had worn her down. She'd almost changed her mind, almost phoned Ste to say, _Let's give it a few weeks, see if Brendan stays out of trouble, and then maybe they can visit you_. But she knew a few weeks would make no difference to how she felt, so she was letting it happen, and it was happening now.

She saw them before Leah and Lucas did. Amy saw a car pull up a little way along on the opposite side of the road, and she saw Ste get out of it, and then the driver's door opened and Brendan got out. She almost shuddered at the sight of him: from this distance he looked malevolent. He was dark-bearded and dressed in black – jeans and a sweater – and he looked as if he had bulked up so that even without doing anything he appeared threatening.

Ste yawned and stretched, and Brendan must have made some remark because Ste grinned at him. He walked around the car to join Brendan and they stood and talked for a moment. Then Amy saw Brendan take Ste's face in both his hands and kiss him on the forehead, and it was so casual, so not about sex or power or control, that it was more shocking to her than any of those things. It looked like love.

She watched them cross the road together, and then Leah spotted them and said, "Daddy!" and knocked on the window and waved, and Lucas said, "Is that man Brendan?"

"Yes," Amy said. "It's Daddy and Brendan. Run and let them in."

She followed her children into the hallway. Leah opened the front door, and Ste came in first and caught both his kids in his arms as they threw themselves at him.

Brendan hung back. He looked huge in the doorway.

"Amy," he said.

"Brendan. I'll put the kettle on."

Ste had been worried about Brendan. What if the kids had forgotten what he was to them? He knew Leah at least remembered him because she talked about him sometimes, but what if he seemed too unfamiliar when they saw him, and they behaved as if they were meeting a stranger? Ste knew a thing like that would hurt Brendan.

"They've grown, ain't they?" Brendan said, and Ste guessed that he was afraid to talk to the kids directly in case they ignored him.

"Leah," Ste said, "Tell Brendan how old you are."

"I'm nearly eight and three quarters. Where's your moustache gone?"

"It's still here, sweetheart." He crouched down and drew the outline of his moustache with his fingers. "Just got the beard to go with it now, so."

Leah studied him for a minute, then reached out and touched his beard.

"I like your moustache best."

"Do you now?"

"We've got chocolate biscuits," Leah said, and went off to find Amy.

Lucas stood at a distance.

"Alright, mate?" Brendan said, and Lucas ran off to his bedroom.

:::::::

They sat and drank tea: Amy and her boyfriend; Ste and his.

"We won't stop long though, Ames, cos..." Ste didn't know how long this peace would last.

Lucas came in carrying a book.

"Can I take it with me?" he asked Amy.

"Course you can. Show me?" She looked at the book he'd chosen. "You sure, Lucas? I thought you didn't like this one."

"Yeah I do."

"You never want me to read it to you."

"Only cos you do the voices wrong." He crossed to where Brendan was sitting, and handed him the book.

"Three Little Pigs?" Brendan said. "Good choice."

:::::::

"Ste, why don't you go and help get the kids' seats out of our car and into Brendan's?"

"I'll go, yeah?" Brendan said, and went to follow Amy's bloke outside.

"No," Amy said. "Ste can do it."

Brendan looked at Amy, then handed his keys to Ste.

"Behave," Ste murmured as he took them, and Brendan watched them go.

Amy sent the kids off next, telling them to go and make sure they'd packed everything they needed.

Brendan and Amy were alone now.

"Thanks for the tea, by the way, it's..."

"You're welcome." Amy stood looking out of the window at the two men wrestling with the child seats. "Ste's told me the kids will be safe, Brendan. I need you to tell me that he's right."

"I got no enemies any more, Amy. That life's behind me. I give you my word, the kids are safe."

"What about in prison? You didn't make any new enemies in there, fighting to be... what is it? Top dog?"

Brendan laughed shortly. "I didn't get into no fights. Didn't wanna be top dog."

"That's not like you."

"It meant nothing, the... all the games in there, the status. Some of them, you're right, they want to be king of the hill, but the hill's not worth shit... Sorry... The hill's not worth anything, you know? And they can't see it, they're... They're lifers, most of them, the ones that want the status, and they got no perspective, they think it means they're top of the world but they ain't, they're top of some f... some crappy wing in some crappy prison. They got nothing else, so."

"And you had?"

"I didn't know if I still had, but I knew what I'd left behind, I knew life could be... more than being the guy everyone's scared of. I kept my head down, Amy. Didn't get on anyone's hit list. The kids are safe with us."

"And what about Ste? Is he safe too?"

"Yeah, I told you. No one's after me, not any more."

"That's not what I mean."

Brendan put his cup down.

"You mean, is he safe from me?"

"Well? Is he?"

"If I didn't think he was, I wouldn'a come back for him."

"Ste told me you've had, you know, therapy for your – "

"Anger management, yeah."

"And... you got treatment for... for the _diminished responsibility_."

"Yeah." He'd forgotten how fearless Amy was, and how blunt when she wanted the facts.

"What treatment? Drugs or..?"

"Drugs at first." He hadn't even told Ste that. "Amitriptyline, they gave me, just to get me through the... the trauma of..."

"Of killing your dad."

"Yeah. Stopped taking it though." There were always people waiting to waylay you on the way back from the medical room, wanting to buy your pills off you if you managed to save them instead of swallowing them, and ready to batter you if you refused. "Wasn't worth the hassle."

"But you had counselling, therapy, whatever? You got treated."

"Yes, Amy. I got help. I'm... better."

"I'm glad. I'm just sorry it took you this long, and Ste had to go through – "

"So am I, but I can't change the past, can I?"

They were silent for a while, watching their men finish fitting the car seats in Brendan's car and start to come back from across the road.

"Do you love him?" Amy remembered asking this once before. _I don't even know what that means_, Brendan had said.

"More than the world."

:::::::

"I'm gonna go up to Liverpool Sunday, Steven. Gonna take Deborah out for dinner or something, okay? I reckon I owe her, so."

Brendan had got a job, and it was thanks to her. She had put him in touch with a contact who was looking for someone to manage one of his clubs while the usual manager was abroad for two years. Brendan had gone to meet him, and been offered the job on the spot: the club in Chester had a membership that included footballers and the new rich, so it needed a manager who could keep them in line. Brendan's reputation had persuaded the owner that he was the man for the job.

"Liverpool?" Ste asked.

"Yeah. Gonna go up Sunday, stay over in a hotel, come back Monday."

"This Sunday? It's your birthday though, I was gonna make us dinner here after we've took the kids back, and now you're going off to Liverpool to take some bird out."

"Sunday's her only night off. Anyways, I don't take no notice of my birthday, do I? You know I don't."

"I weren't planning on throwing you a party, Brendan, I was just gonna... But it dun't matter now, does it, cos you've made other plans."

"I was kinda hoping you'd come with me."

"What?"

"We'll go out with Deborah, then... You like staying in hotels, don't you?"

"Yeah." Ste started to look pleased, but couldn't let go of his argumentative mood once he was in it. "But I can't though, can I? Cos someone's got to take the kids back to Manchester, right, and I can't be in two places at once, or d'you want me to just tell Amy we can't have them this weekend at all, Brendan, eh? Cos how's that gonna look? We've only had them once, and now you want her to think we're bored of them already?"

"Jesus, is it your time of the month or something?"

"Shut up."

"We can take them home Sunday evening, same as last time, then drive across to Liverpool, check in at the hotel, then go and meet Deborah. It ain't rocket science, Steven, for fucksake."

"I in't stupid."

"Didn't say you were. You're just a fucking pain in the arse, is what you are."

:::::::

On Saturday morning coming home in the car after they'd picked Leah and Lucas up from Amy's, Ste got a text message. He read it, frowning in concentration.

"Everything okay, Steven?"

"Yeah." Ste dropped his voice so the kids wouldn't hear him in the back seat. "It's from the clinic."

"All clear?"

"Yeah." Ste stared straight ahead, not wanting to react until Brendan had got his results too.

A few minutes later, Brendan's phone buzzed.

"See who it is, Steven."

"It's them. D'you want me to..?"

"Yeah, go on." Brendan knew he hadn't done anything risky, but still his heart started pounding.

Ste read the message, and read it again to make sure.

"Same as mine."

When Brendan glanced at him, Ste's eyes were shining; at the next set of traffic lights, Brendan rested his hand on his knee.

:::::::

They had to spend night apart.

Leah had been having nightmares for a couple of years now, and when it happened she wouldn't go back to sleep on her own. _Sorry_, Ste had said when he told Brendan that he was going to have to sleep in Leah's room, _But we've got the rest of our lives. _Brendan had kissed him, and had gone to bed with a whiskey instead.

They didn't have a moment to themselves for the whole of Sunday, and by the time they'd taken the kids home to Amy and arrived at their hotel in the evening, they'd gone beyond frustration and had begun to enjoy the anticipation.

They were running late. When Brendan had changed into a suit, he came out of the bathroom and found Ste standing in front of the full length mirror, doing his hair. He was in his dark jeans – the ones he wore when he wanted to look smart; the ones that hung low on his hips and showed a glimpse of his blue boxers – and shirtless. Brendan looked at him for a moment, and then walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around his middle, and rested his chin on his bony shoulder.

"You nearly ready, yeah?" Brendan said, and looked at him in the mirror.

"Will be in a sec."

Brendan kissed his neck, and slid his thumb into the waistband of his jeans. Ste didn't object, so Brendan undid the fly button and stroked the warm bulge in the stretched cotton of his underwear. Ste made a half hearted attempt to carry on styling his hair with his fingers, but Brendan could hear his breath beginning to ratchet in his throat.

He tugged Ste's jeans and boxers until they dropped to the floor around his ankles.

"Look at you. Skinny little fuck."

"Thought we was in a hurry?"

"Thought you were doing your hair." He held Ste's hips lightly.

Ste craned his neck around for a kiss, then faced front again and teased at the moussed quiff he was trying to perfect. Brendan circled his waist again with one arm and pulled him back against him; with his free hand he scratched a line on Ste's inner thigh at his groin, and when his testicle lifted, Brendan laughed.

"What you doing, Brendan? Get off." Ste tutted and wriggled.

"Just testing." Brendan bit his ear.

"Testing what?"

"Your cremasteric reflex, Steven. And guess what? You passed."

"You weirdo."

Brendan held him still and ran a finger along the underside of his cock. Ste stared at the reflection of Brendan's hand as it closed around him. Brendan was just as mesmerised by Ste's face: his cheeks flushed pink and his tongue appeared between his lips, and as Brendan squeezed his dick and pulled back so its head was exposed, Ste's eyes seemed to darken as they widened. Brendan stroked his thumb over the tip, at first barely touching, and then less gently until he rubbed hard enough to hurt, and Ste let out an involuntary sound like a whimper that sent a rush of heat to Brendan's own cock.

A dribble of pre-cum oozed onto Brendan's thumb. He brought it to Ste's mouth but Ste shook his head and sealed his lips into a tight line of refusal, so Brendan licked it himself.

"Come on, Steven. We're gonna be late." He let go of Ste, and slapped his bum.

"Ow. What about me? What you gonna do about..?" He looked down at his erection.

"Lazy bastard, I gotta do everything myself now?" Brendan turned him so he was side on to the mirror now, stood in front of him and dropped to his knees. He didn't look up as he sucked him off – except when he stopped to tell Ste, "Will you stop pulling me hair? Fucksake." – but he knew Ste was watching in the mirror, so he made sure to put on a show and swallowed him as deeply as he ever had.

"Fuck, Brendan, that was..." Ste said as Brendan stood up.

"Yeah, well, you better be ready by the time I've brushed me teeth, or that's all you're getting."

:::::::

Debbie was in the restaurant when they got there. She and Brendan greeted each other with a kiss.

"Deborah, this is Steven. Steven, Deborah."

"It's Debbie," Debbie said to Ste.

"It's Ste," said Ste.

Debbie and Ste glanced at Brendan, then looked at each other and grinned.

"What?" said Brendan. "I'll get the Champagne in then, will I? Good."

Brendan had been worried about introducing Ste to someone from his life before they met, but his desire to show him off had overcome his reluctance, and seeing how well the two of them got along made him wonder why he'd had doubts in the first place. The evening was good, and it felt like a celebration – of his new job, of his new life, even of his birthday – and the Champagne he'd ordered wasn't dry like the kind he preferred, because Ste liked it sweeter. Brendan liked seeing him get softer and flirtier as it went to his head. He didn't even mind him flirting with the waiter, not when Brendan knew that at the end of the night he would have him to himself.

"Alastair was well impressed with you, Brendan," Debbie said.

"Can't thank you enough, you know, for putting a word in."

"No problem. I knew you'd be exactly what he was looking for, didn't I? He wants someone who can keep all those little footballers in line. Last thing he needs is some pushover who's gonna let them turn that club into a knocking shop, full of wannabe Wags and white powder. I told him you're on probation so you've got to keep it clean, and that suits him. When do you start?"

"Not till the end of January, something like that. Gonna go in for handover for a coupl'a weeks, then it'll be mine for two years till the other guy gets back." Brendan turned to Ste. "Then after that, my probation's up and we'll be free to go if we want, Steven."

"Go where?"

"I was thinking Dublin, maybe. Start over, you know?"

"Get our own place, you mean? Like, our own club?"

"If you want. Long as we can sort something out with the kids. If not, we can stay in England, it's... it's something to think about, yeah? We got time."

"Yeah." Ste smiled. Whenever Brendan spoke about the future, Ste felt as if his heart was swelling.

"You've got kids, Ste?" Debbie was surprised.

"Yeah, two."

"Ahh, just like Brendan. You're not married though, no? You're just a baby yourself."

"I in't that young." Ste pouted, and looked like a teenager. "And I was married. Well, civil partnership, but... not any more, anyway."

"Everyone's just a baby to me, Ste, don't worry. Even birthday boy here."

"He's thirty-five now," Ste said, "But I still love him." He touched Brendan's hand across the table.

Brendan rolled his eyes.

When Brendan went off to the toilet, Debbie said to Ste, "I've never seen Brendan like this, like sort of... warm, and not twitchy, you know what I mean? I reckon you're a good influence."

"He in't always like this, believe me. But yeah, he's changed loads, cos of lots of reasons, not just cos of me."

"Mostly cos of you though, love. Just the way he looks at you, it's obvious you mean the world to him. And it's not just because you're gorgeous, I bet."

"Give over." Ste paused. "Debbie? Can I ask you something?"

"Go on."

"When you worked with Brendan before, right, did you know Vinnie, Vincent, whatever his name was?"

"Yeah, why? Did you know him?"

"No, but Brendan mentioned him so I was wondering if... What was he like?"

"He was a sweetheart, Ste, a little love, God bless him."

"Right."

"So... was he Brendan's... you know?" Debbie asked. "Only I never even knew Brendan was gay back then, but looking back I think Vinnie might've been his – "

"Yeah, he was."

"That explains a few things. But Ste, listen." Debbie spoke quickly as she saw Brendan heading back towards them. "Brendan was the same when he left that club as he was when he first arrived. Whatever Vinnie was to him, he didn't change Brendan one iota. I never saw Brendan look at him the way he looks at you. In fact, I've never seen anybody look at anybody the way he looks at you, except maybe in the movies. And yes, Brendan, if you're wondering, we were talking about you."

Brendan sat down and swiped a smear of chocolate from the corner of Ste's mouth with his thumb.

"Do I wanna know?"

Debbie and Ste smiled at each other.

Brendan got the bill.

* * *

_Brendan_

We waited with Deborah till her cab came, and then we walked back to our hotel. It was cold I guess – middle of November so it must have been – but we weren't cold. The booze kept us warm, plus we were walking fast except when he grabbed my arm to stop me and I pushed him against a streetlamp and kissed him, and he tasted of alcohol and chocolate tart. And when we got into our room, I could feel the heat coming off him as I peeled off the layers and got down to his skin.

He was drunk but not too drunk. I'd noticed him slowing down after his first couple of glasses so he was just sipping at it, and I'd followed his lead: I didn't want to be no use to him after all the delay, did I?

He was at that point where, bony as he was, he was boneless too, all undulations as he fell backwards onto the bed and curled his limbs around me. Clumsy little fucker though, he took so long trying to get my shirt unbuttoned that I stood back up and stripped myself off without his attempts to help. He lay and watched me undressing, playing with his dick.

"You're proper fit, Brendan, d'you know that?"

"You know what's the best thing about having a lover from England, the land of Shakespeare – ?" I clambered onto the bed and kissed his lips – "And Shelley – ?" I kissed him again – "And Keats?"

"What?"

"The poetry," I said.

"What you on about?"

"Nothing." I kissed him again.

"You taking the piss?"

"Nope."

He looked up at me, opened his mouth as if he was going to argue, then he said, "Right, did you remember to pack the lube?"

"See what I mean? _Poetry_."

He kicked me as I got off him. I laughed and went and got the lube from my washbag.

He got under the covers and I got in with him.

There was something about hotel beds. The ironed white cotton sheets, the weight of the bedding; the way he looked against the pillow, like he was aware this wasn't a bed he had to make and these were sheets he didn't have to wash, and tomorrow he'd have breakfast made for him, and it was all expensive and it was all for him.

I stroked his face.

"Happy birthday," he said, and he kissed me, and then he kind of laughed, not his usual laugh but sort of soft like a breath.

"What's funny?" I asked him.

"Nothing's funny. I'm just, you know..."

"Me too."

We took our time after all the waiting. It surprised me, and I think it surprised him too, but we both went slow, just lay there kissing and touching, stroking, whatever. It doesn't sound much, but I was never touched by anyone else how he touched me. I mean obviously they touched me, other lads did, but it was to bring me off, or when they held onto me while we fucked. Maybe sometimes Vincent did when he got to know me; maybe Macca if we weren't in a rush – but nothing like Steven. Lying there with him, it was like we were equals. I used to think, when I'd hear people call their fella or their girl _My other half_, I used to think, _Get a fucking grip_. But now? Jesus.

I got the lube and squeezed some onto my hand, and we lay face to face again and he hooked his leg over me, and I ran my fingers down the crack of his arse and when I got them inside him he did that thing he does where he's breathing into my mouth and there's a kind of tremble in it, and I turned my hand and the breathing turned into groaning.

He wanted me on top of him. I love it when that's what he wants. I love it when his legs come around me. I love how everything he's feeling writes itself on his face.

When I entered him, the raw sensation went through me like a shock. Without that thin layer of rubber between us, the inside of him felt more muscular, more alive, and what I was doing to him seemed to me more invasive than before; more intimate. I pulled out a little and kissed him, and he came up to meet me, his hands in my hair. I turned my head and licked the inside of his wrist, and then I looked at his face again and I said his name, and in my head I said, _Tell me. Tell me_.

"I love you," he said.

As I drove into him there was a second when he looked confused, as if he didn't know if he was feeling pleasure or pain, and then the doubt disappeared and his head snapped back and I felt him angle his pelvis so the pressure in him was just where he wanted it. I shifted my weight from both arms to one so I had a free hand, and I took hold of his wrist and took his hand down to his cock, and I made him make himself come. The shudder in his body, and the feel of his cum hitting my belly, and his scream and the look in his eyes like he'd seen the secret of everything – these things were the perfect storm, and I came in him like no one else ever would.

:::::::

"Brendan?"

That tone of voice that always means he's going to ask something I might not like.

"Give me a minute, Steven, yeah?" I'd just come home from the gym and I wanted a shower not a talk.

"I was just thinking, right, d'you wanna meet me dad now? I mean, now that you've got a proper job lined up, I thought you might, y'know..."

He'd figured it out, then. I hadn't said anything to him: I hadn't told him that the reason I'd been avoiding meeting his dad was that I had no income, no contact with my kids, no property, and a conviction for manslaughter to my name – all that, and god knows what else the guy might have heard about me. I couldn't stand the thought of Steven's father looking at me with all those reasons in his head why I didn't deserve to be with his son. I hadn't shared that fear with Steven but he'd worked it out for himself: I underestimate him sometimes.

"I dunno, Steven." I'd got a job, sure, but aside from that I still didn't look like much of a prospect.

"Are you worried he won't like you? You've met the girls, they like you don't they? D'you know what Peri said after?"

Peri, Tegan and Leela. When he'd told me their names I'd said to him they sound like names you'd give your pet cats, but no, apparently they're named after Doctor Who's assistants. Jesus. They were okay though, the sisters. Two of them had been round to see Leah and Lucas a couple of times, and the other one we'd run into when we were out one night. I couldn't get my head around them being as closely related to Steven as I am to Cheryl – we were a family, me and Steven, Leah and Lucas, and now he had this family outside of us – but yeah, they seemed okay.

"No Steven, I don't know what _Peri_ said after."

"She said you look like Wolverine."

"Okay."

"You've got to meet him sometime, Brendan. Shall I tell him he can come round?"

"No." I saw the disappointment on his face. "Not here, okay? Just... Okay, maybe a drink or something, yeah?"

"Alright." He smiled. "We'll go for a drink with me dad."

:::::::

He was already at the bar when we got there, although I was ahead of him on the drinking front: I'd had one before we left home. Maybe two. Well, I wasn't driving, so.

"There he is," Steven said.

I don't know what I'd been expecting, but he wasn't it. I guess I'd thought he'd fit with Pauline Hay, you know? Even though I knew he was a school teacher, and I knew his daughters weren't... rough. Course I should have thought, Pauline Hay was seventeen when she was with him, and probably back then she wasn't rough either. Anyhow this fella, Steven's dad, he smiled when he saw us, and he was nice looking – well he would be, with Steven as a son – and tall, and I realised there were must be less years between him and me than between me and Steven.

Then Steven went up to him, and the guy gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"Bren, this is me dad."

"Thought you'd have little pointy ears. No?" I said. "Brendan Brady."

"That's Star Trek," he said and he held out his hand. "Danny Lomax."

I shook his hand.

"Oh yeah, yeah, it's... Doctor Who is it?" I could see Steven glaring at me but I couldn't stop myself. "All the names, the assistants... That's cute."

"Companions," Steven said.

"What?"

"They're not assistants, they're companions." He looked sheepish, but he looked at his dad and his dad winked, and Steven smiled back at him.

Jesus.

"Yeah," I said. "You had a lucky escape there, Steven, you could'a ended up named after a Dalek."

"Shut up, Brendan."

"Steven said you were funny," Daniel said. "He was right. What can I get you both?"

He went along the bar to order.

"Why are you being like this, eh?" Steven hissed at me.

"Like what?"

"You're being a prick, Brendan. Can't you just try and behave like a normal person?"

"Jesus, I was just joking with him. Breaking the ice, wasn't I."

"No, you wasn't. Just, can you... Please can you..."

Shit.

"Sorry."

I behaved myself then, and to be honest, Daniel seemed a decent guy. He hadn't risen to the bait when I'd tried winding him up, and for a man being introduced to his son's ex-con boyfriend he was surprisingly laid back. Good humoured, you might say, which is more than I would be if Declan hooked up with a killer. Bottom line was, once I made the effort and Steven stopped looking scared of what I was going to say, we got along okay. We stood at the bar, and Steven did most of the talking – a lot of talking, like he does when he's nervous – and his dad was good with him, didn't put him down if he used the wrong word, smiled when he cracked a joke; took him seriously. I liked that about him.

Then John Paul McQueen walked in.

Steven saw him first, and his demeanour changed.

"What's _he_ doing here?" He said _he_ as if he was saying _that_.

"Thought I'd join you," John Paul said. "I'll grab us a table, shall I?"

He went up to Daniel and kissed him on the mouth, then off he went to sit down.

What the fuck?

"You're back together, then?" Steven said to his dad, and it was his most sarcastic tone, the tone he usually reserves for me. "It's on, then it's off, then it's on again. I can't keep up."

"Ste, sorry, I thought I'd told you. I didn't ask him to come tonight, but he's here now, so..."

"Fine. Whatever."

Steven started sloping across to where the McQueen lad had sat down, but I grabbed him by the arm.

"You wanna tell me what's going on here?"

"What's it look like? John Paul bloody McQueen's gatecrashing, in't he."

"But he's... Your dad's _queer_ now?"

"No. He's bisexual, okay?"

"Bisexual. Jesus. And you didn't think that was worth mentioning?"

"What's it matter, Brendan? He's me dad anyway."

"It don't matter, no, not until he turns up with that... fucking... smartarse in tow."

"Oh, mate," Daniel said to me as he caught us up. "The missus and the ex. Welcome to every man's worst nightmare."

"Told you about our little hook-up, has he, _mate_?" I said. I was surprised: I wondered how that had gone down, John Paul telling him about his rebound indiscretion with me.

"We don't have secrets. Not any more," Daniel said as we reached the table.

"Adorable, ain't it?" I said to Steven, and then to Daniel I said, "Your man here, he ain't my _ex_, by the way, if that's the impression he gave you. It was just a shag."

"And I in't nobody's _missus_," Steven said to his dad.

"We could all just move on," John Paul said. "You know, like grown-ups?"

Smug git.

We all sat down and attempted a conversation.

Daniel was uncomfortable. John Paul was needling. Steven was sulking.

I got the next round in.

When I got back to the table, John Paul said to me, "I was just thinking, you and Sam have got something in common."

"Who's Sam?"

"Ste's stepmum. I suppose that makes her your mother-in-law, Brendan. Well, ish."

"Get to the point, if there is one, yeah?"

"I'm just saying, you and Sam, you'd probably have a lot to talk about. Both got an interest in the criminal justice system, haven't you? Just from slightly different sides, obviously."

"JP," Daniel said, and shook his head at him.

"Just trying to lighten the mood."

"What's he talking about?" I said to Steven.

"John Paul's trying to be funny," Steven said, and his nose wrinkled as he looked across the table at him. "Sam's a copper."

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph."

"Do they do bar snacks here?" Daniel said, and he dragged his boyfriend away to find out.

"A copper?" I said to Steven. "Are you kidding me?"

"She's nice."

"She's a cop. You say one word about something I've done, and – "

"I won't! D'you really think I'm that stupid?"

"No. No, it's just... I'm... It's weird, this, you know?"

"I know. I should'a told you about me dad and John Paul, but I didn't even know he was gonna be here though."

"It's okay."

"We might as well try and get along," Steven said.

"I will if you will."

"Alright." He sunk into silence.

"So," I said as the other two came back and sat down, "How did you two lovebirds meet?"

See, I could do smalltalk.

"In school," Daniel said. "JP was – "

"Your pupil?" I said, and smiled.

"We're both teachers," Daniel said and smiled back, unruffled.

"That's cute."

"Has Ste told you how he and Danny met?" John Paul asked me. "Funny story – "

"Leave it, JP," Daniel said.

I looked at Steven.

"It's nothing anyway," he said.

"Oh," John Paul said. "He hasn't, has he?"

"Fuck off, John Paul, right," Steven said.

"Steven!" Daniel said, "Don't talk to him like that, okay?"

"Steven can say what the fuck he likes," I said.

:::::::

Things had calmed down somehow. I think Daniel had had a word with his boyfriend when they went off to the gents – either that or they'd found a way to ease the tension while they were in there – and so when they came back John Paul was biting his tongue, and Steven and I did the same. Civilised conversation: who would have thought?

I was getting the last drinks in before closing, and Daniel came up to the bar to give me a hand.

"Bit of history between John Paul and Ste," he said to me. "Hope we can get past it."

"Yeah, kids' stuff. Didn't help when I... you know, in Dublin..."

"I know, yeah, Ste told me about it. I think we've all said things – done things – we regret, Brendan."

"Some more than others, that what you're saying?"

"No, not at all. I'm not judging you, Brendan, I'm saying we make bad decisions and we mess up, but it's how we learn from it that matters." He paused. "Do I sound like a self-help manual?"

"A bit, yeah, but go on."

He smiled.

"Sorry. It's the teacher in me. I'm just saying, Steven's very persuasive about you, you know, that you've become the man he wants you to be. And I think... I think as long as you don't let him down, then I'm happy for him to be with you."

"You giving us your blessing, Daniel?"

"Am I sounding really patronising?"

"That'll be your boyfriend rubbing off on you. So to speak. But thanks."

"Better get back, make sure they haven't started ripping chunks out of each other."

"Steven would win," I said as we walked back to the table. "He's skinny, but he fights dirty."

We sat down. Steven looked at us curiously.

"Everything alright?" he asked.

"You kids behaving yourselves?"

"Very funny."

:::::::

It was after midnight when the taxi dropped us home.

"Brendan, can I ask you something?"

"You're gonna ask me anyway, so."

"You know when we got there, why was you funny with Danny?"

"Why were you funny with John Paul?"

"You know why I'm funny with him, Brendan, don't change the subject. Before JP even got there, you was being funny. Why?"

"I dunno. Just... when you, you know, _hugged_ him, it was... I was jealous, okay? It's like, he's your dad, ain't he? He's... permanent."

"I hope so, yeah."

"What if I'm not, Steven, hm? You've had other... other men in your life – you've chosen other men over me. What if..."

"Brendan! Do you think I would'a ever chosen someone else if you was like you are now? If I had the choice of you – _this_ Brendan Brady – or anyone else in the world? I love you. I never loved anyone else. Maybe I thought I did, but I never. I never. Are you ever gonna get that into your head?"

He came and wrapped his arms around my neck, and held me as tight as I was holding him.

"I love you too, Steven."

"Permanent, yeah?"

"Permanent."


	7. Chapter 7

They slept face to face now: it was easier this way.

They used to fall asleep sometimes lying like spoons, Ste's back against Brendan's chest, Brendan's arm around Ste's stomach; or sometimes Brendan would be on his back and Ste face down beside him, his head turned away. But Brendan would wake Ste in the night – _Steven. Steven_ – and make him turn to him and open his eyes, and Ste's _What_? would be answered by, _Nothing. Go back to sleep_. And Ste had given up asking why he'd been woken, and instead got himself into the habit of always facing Brendan so that when he was woken he didn't have to move and was barely even aware of it any more. Opening his eyes was enough, and he'd fall straight back into sleep as soon as Brendan told him to.

Brendan's dreams were rarely troubled nowadays, but still when he woke up in the early hours he would be disorientated and when he realised where he was, and who he was with, he couldn't believe his life was like this. That was why he had to wake him – _Steven. Steven_ – because if Ste could see him, then it must be real.

Sometimes Brendan wondered if Ste found it oppressive, being loved this much.

:::::::

Ste put a mug of tea down silently on the bedside cabinet on Brendan's side of the bed, then put his own cup down on his side and got back in, trying not to wake him.

Brendan stirred, and squinted his eyes open.

"Cup of tea there," Ste said.

"Mm? Time is it?" Brendan closed his eyes again, and sighed.

"Half nine, sleepy head. Got nothing to hurry for though, I in't at work til three."

Brendan heaved himself up a little way so his shoulders were propped against the headboard, and took a gulp of tea.

"S'good," he said. He set his mug down and smiled at Ste.

The grey winter light showed the lines round Brendan's eyes and the white hairs here and there in his beard, but he didn't look washed out like he had when he'd first come home. Ste thought he was like an old lion who'd been locked away in a cage, and was starting to remember how to be himself again now he'd been set free. He loved Brendan more than ever.

He shuffled closer and kissed him, then rested against him, his head on Brendan's shoulder. He looked down, and smoothed a hand over the cover, and felt a bump in it at Brendan's groin.

"Big Bren's woken up," Ste said.

"Better say good morning, then."

Brendan got hold of Ste by the hair and pushed him under the cover. He felt him scrabbling at his boxers to release his cock, and then Ste's mouth was straight on it, one hand on his shaft and the other rubbing and squeezing his balls. The noises he made were almost as good as his touch: he was slurping wetly, _Mmm_ing, and panting hard through his nose in his struggle to breathe in the thick warm air down there. Brendan lifted the cover to have a look. Ste was hunched over him, the hair on the crown of his head pointing every which way where Brendan had grabbed it, and when Ste felt the cooler air being let in, he took a big breath through his mouth then sealed his lips again and resumed sucking. Brendan scratched the nape of his neck, and felt the tip of Ste's tongue trace the tight band of his retracted foreskin.

He dropped the cover and reached back to grip the headboard over his shoulders, and tried to resist the urge to thrust up into Ste's throat – he wanted to delay so this would last and last, and in the end it was Ste who got determined and got busy with his hands, and forced Brendan to come when he wanted him to. His lips stayed around him until he had emptied him. Then Ste tucked Brendan's licked-clean cock back into his boxers, and started kissing his way up his heaving stomach.

Brendan watched his head emerge, and felt his kisses up the middle of his chest; he pulled Ste's T-shirt up and rubbed his back as Ste nuzzled into his neck, and then they kissed, and kept kissing until Brendan couldn't taste himself on Ste's tongue any more and could only taste him.

He held Ste's face in his hands and looked at it, the cheeks still flushed with heat, the eyes gleaming.

"What did I do to deserve you, Steven, hm?"

"Don't be daft. I'm happy, in't I? I've got everything I've ever wanted."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Me too."

"You've not though, have you?"

"Not what?" Brendan picked up his tea, and Ste reached for his and sat back beside Brendan.

"Not got everything you want," Ste said. "I mean, we've got Leah and Lucas at weekends, and we've got each other, but you've not seen your kids."

"Don't matter. Can't force them, can I?" Brendan had spoken to both his sons on the phone. With Declan it had been awkward, the conversation superficial and cut short by Declan. With Padraig it was worse – they'd barely known each other before, never mind now. Brendan had felt like a stranger trying to fool a child into liking him, and he'd felt clammy with self-loathing by the end of it.

"Give them time, Bren, yeah?"

"Tea's gone cold."

:::::::

Since the time Declan had come over more than three years ago to get away from some trouble he'd got himself into at home, Ste had seen him once. It was last year, and he'd turned up in the village and tracked Ste down, and they'd spent a few hours together. Declan had been up in Liverpool for a day or two because he was thinking of applying to uni there; Ste hadn't been able to work out why he'd wanted to see him, but he'd suspected he was looking for some answers about what his dad had done. _It's complicated_, Ste had told him. _There's things I can't tell you, but trust me, right, your dad's better than what people think he is._

Since then they'd kept in touch now and again online, but not since Brendan had been out of prison. Not until today.

Ste had left for work with enough time to spare to make a couple of phone calls. He sat on a wall down the road from the restaurant and called Declan's number.

"Ste, whassup?"

"Alright, Declan? I'm just... You know your dad's... Me and your dad, we're back together. Did he tell you?"

"Yeah. It's cool."

"Right, yeah. And you know he can't go to see you cos he in't allowed to go to Dublin, or anywhere really, right, cos of his probation? He wants to see you, he really, really does, but he can't, so I – "

"Yeah, but like, whose fault is that?"

"It's his probation, they don't let – "

"Yeah, but he wouldn't be on probation if he hadn't killed my granddad, so..."

"He didn't, though, right. I mean, he didn't mean to do it, Declan, and he's... he's done his time, and he's still your dad. He loves you, d'you know that? And he's changed, he's trying so hard, and he's... he's amazing. What he's been through, and he's... He's just _better_. And if I can give him another chance, I just... I just really wish you could, too."

"He paying you to say all that?" Declan sounded amused.

"Shut up, no. I'm just asking, can you... You're at college in Dublin now, right?"

"Yep."

"How's it going?"

"Good so far."

"You get holidays though, right? You'll be off at Christmas?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I was wondering... can you come over? You and your brother? Even if it's just a coupl'a days, you know, just... So I can tell him, you know, there's a chance for him to..."

"I dunno, Ste. You'll have to ask my mum." He sounded like the kid Ste remembered from his first visit, until he covered it up: "About Paddy, I mean. I'm eighteen, I don't need her permission, so."

"But you would, if... If your mum says Paddy can come, you'd come?"

"Maybe."

"Right, well, have you got her number, then?"

"I'll text it to you."

When the text came through, Ste's fingers were almost too cold to tap the number, but he had to do it now or he'd lose his nerve. He pulled his collar up as he waited for Eileen to answer.

"Hello?"

"Is that Eileen?"

"Yes. Who's this?"

"It's Ste, I'm Brendan's – "

"I know who you are. What's the matter? Something happened?"

"No, nothing's happened."

"Oh, so you just phoned for a wee chat, did you?"

"No. I just wanted to ask you something," Ste said, then he added, "Please."

"This is gonna be good. What d'you want to ask me, then, Ste?"

"I was just talking to your Declan, and he said if I got your permission he'd... he might bring your Paddy over to see Brendan."

"You've been talking to my kids? Brendan put you up to this, did he?"

"No! He dun't even know I'm asking, Eileen, I'm just trying to... like, fix things."

"I'm not being funny, Ste, but last time you asked me to let him near my kids, five minutes later he was shooting his old man to death."

Ste wanted to throw his phone across the street with the frustration. Nobody could see Brendan how he saw him, and he didn't know what to say that would make them.

He took a breath.

"You know he's changed, though, Eileen, right? He got help when he was inside, he's not... violent any more, and he's gone straight."

"Ha."

"He's not a criminal now. He's got a job, right, he starts next month. Everything's different now, and he misses his kids so much, Eileen, please..."

There was a long pause, then he heard Eileen sigh.

"We're going to Belfast to see my mum for Christmas. If he wants to come over, he can see my boys then. He's allowed to go to Northern Ireland, yeah?"

"Yeah, he is, yeah. Eileen, that's brilliant. Thank you."

"We're there just for Christmas, back to Dublin for New Year, you got that? Make sure he knows."

"Thanks. I mean, I will, Eileen, I'll tell him. Thanks, Eileen."

"That's my name. Don't wear it out."

* * *

_Brendan_

Steven had brought food home from work with him. He did that sometimes, saved him having to cook when he got in and it was better than a takeaway.

"What you been doing?" he said.

"Nothing. Went to the gym, and...whatever."

"S'alright for some, innit. I'm out slaving, and you're just – "

"I'm gonna be working, ain't I? Jesus, what do you want me to do, Steven, hm?"

"Alright, I was only joking." He stomped off to the kitchen.

Shit.

I followed him.

"Steven, I... Look, I guess I'm just a little sensitive, yeah?" It was the truth. I felt like a spare part, waiting around for my job to start and meanwhile having to watch him go out to do his shifts at that restaurant that paid him next to nothing.

"I get it," he said. "And you deserve it, you know, having some time to yourself after you've been inside. I know what it's like, don't I. But just don't jump down my throat, okay?"

"You could stop working, you know, if you wanted. I got enough money, and I'll be earning enough for the both of us when I start at the club."

"You want me to give up me job? No."

"Come on, why not? It ain't much of a – "

"Oh, right, thanks. Good to know what you think of me."

"Steven, I didn't mean... I just meant, if you wanted to give it up, you could. I ain't saying you have to, for chrissake, you can carry on working if you want."

"I don't need your permission to work, Brendan!"

"I didn't mean – "

"What you gonna do, give me pocket money? No."

Did he know what it did to me when he scowled like that? When his lips blew out into a pout and his eyes shone, dark with resenting me? I wanted to smack him and I wanted to fuck him.

"Forget I said anything, okay?" I stared at the back of him as he stood facing the window. "We okay?"

He shrugged, and I went to him and kissed his neck until the microwave pinged and he said, "Tea's ready," and he turned around and looked at me, and shook his head, and he bit my lip when he kissed me.

We ate our dinner in front of the telly.

"Brendan?" he said when he'd finished, and he pressed the mute button.

"Yep."

"I've got some news, me."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I phoned... You know we was talking about your kids and that? So today, I phoned Eileen, and I asked her, you know, if – "

"Jesus, Steven, what the fuck? What's she gonna listen to you for?"

"No, but she did though. She said she's taking them to Belfast to her mum's for Christmas, right, and if you go over there she'll let you see them."

"What? Just like that? You asked her, and she said yes, just like that?"

"Well, yeah, sort of. Declan agreed first, and then I told her about, you know, how you've changed, and she... she just sort of said yes."

I couldn't believe it. I just sat and thought for a minute, and then when I looked at Steven, he had this expression like he thought I was going to throw it back in his face.

"Thank you," I said, and I saw the relief flood through him. "I love you, Steven, okay? I love you."

He was bright as light and I'd never loved him more.

"Not just a pretty face, am I?" he said. "Got you your kids as a Christmas present."

"Better think of what I'm gonna give you then, hadn't I."

"A trip to Belfast'll do me for Chrimbo. It'll be brilliant. You better treat me for me birthday, mind."

"Birthday?" I'd forgotten, but his birthday was coming up in January. "Oh yeah, it's a big one, ain't it? Twenty-five."

"No. I'm already twenty-five, Brendan, you've missed two of me birthdays, not one. Gonna be twenty-six, in't I."

"Wow." I looked at him so I'd have the pleasure of seeing his reaction. "Never thought I'd have a boyfriend in his late twenties..."

"Shut up. _Mid_ twenties. And you never thought you'd have a boyfriend at all, so anyway you can – "

"D'you wanna get married on it?"

"What?" he said into the silence.

"Your birthday. D'you wanna get married on your birthday?"

"Married to you?"

"No, to Justin Bieber. Yes, to me, you idiot."

For a second he looked completely baffled, but then I couldn't see his face any more because he was on me, he was kissing me, his hands were in my hair, and in between kisses he was saying, "Yes. Yes. Yes."

:::::::

We sat side by side on the sofa with the laptop, finding out online what we had to do next. We were going to have to take a bunch of documents down to the registry office to give notice of the marriage, and when we were looking at the list of what the documents were, I had a moment when I thought, _Shit_.

"Steven, you got this one, yeah, this final order thing?"

"What?"

"Like, I got a decree absolute – a divorce – and you got your final order thing from ending your civil partnership, yeah? You and Douglas, you ended it properly, yeah?"

"No. I mean, Doug died, Brendan."

"What? When? How?"

"Coupl'a years ago. It was... it was like, an accident."

He was lying. I could see it, he was lying about what had happened.

"What kind of an accident? Steven?"

"Why? Does it matter?"

"No. No, I guess not. I'm... sorry."

"No you're not." Steven was getting fired up, emotional. "Don't pretend you're sorry, Brendan, cos I know you hated him."

He was staring at the screen of the laptop but not seeing it. I touched his arm, but he shook me off.

"I didn't hate him, Steven. He was..." _He was nothing_.

"Yeah, well, whatever, cos he saved my life anyway so I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for him."

"Saved your life?"

"In the accident." He was being cagey again. "He got me out of it, and then..."

"Okay." I thought for a minute, and my stomach lurched. "So he was with you."

Steven looked down.

"Yeah."

"You were _together_?" I looked at him, and he nodded but didn't look at me. "Jesus."

"What?"

"A couple of years ago, Steven? I'd only just fucking gone inside."

"Alright, Brendan. I know, right? I know. I was... I was in trouble, and I was lonely and I didn't have no one, did I? I thought I was never gonna see you again. I'd killed me mum, I'd got this suspended sentence – "

"What?"

"Yeah. It's gone now, it was two years but it's up, so..."

"Jesus."

"So there was loads of things happening and Doug... Doug was just there, right, he just sort of..."

"I bet he did."

"_You gotta live your life_. D'you remember saying that to me, Brendan? Cos I remember you saying it. I remember every single word."

"I remember, yeah."

"Well then. I was just trying to do what you told me, weren't I."

Fucksake. He was right, and I didn't have a leg to stand on but, Jesus, anyone but the fucking husband (God rest his soul.)

"Did you love Douglas?"

"I wanted to. I tried to. I told him I did. But it weren't real, none of it was, not ever."

I nodded. I had to stop asking him to reassure me, or one day he would have enough and walk away.

"Anything else you're not telling me?"

"Brendan, I don't know about all the lads you've went with, right. I don't know all the things you've done, either, but I bet I don't know the half of it. Can we just... please..."

He was right on that score too. There were things I'd done that he knew nothing about – things that made me sweat if I closed my eyes and called them to mind. He'd forgiven me for more than I'd a right to expect, but if I told him everything I might be pushing my luck. And if I wanted to keep my own secrets, it was only fair that he could keep his too.

"The trouble you were in," I asked, "Is it sorted?"

"Yeah."

"And if anyone ever gives you trouble again, you'll tell me?"

"Yes." He dug his elbow into my ribs. "Now can we just get on with booking this bloody wedding, please? Before I come to me senses and change me mind."

:::::::

We made the appointment and went to the registry office. The registrar took our ID and so forth, then when that was out of the way and she'd decided we were eligible to get married, we told her the date we wanted.

It was a problem. January ninth was a Saturday, and apparently Saturdays got booked up months ahead, even Saturdays in the dead of winter. I was going to say okay, make it the eighth, the tenth, whatever, but I saw Steven's face.

"You got no slots free at all that day, no?" I asked the woman.

"No. We've got ceremonies all day, right through until five o'clock."

"What time d'you close?"

"At six, I'm afraid."

"How long does it take? It don't take an hour, does it? Can't you do us after the five o'clock one?"

"Please," Steven said.

She typed something on her keyboard and read what came up on the screen.

"That one's a simple ceremony actually, but even so it could take three quarters of an hour, so there's really not time to – "

"So, book us in for five forty-five, yeah?"

"It's really not practical. We've got to get your guests seated, perform the ceremony, sign the register. With the best will in the world, it's really not going to be possible."

I looked at Steven. He was thinking.

"We don't need any guests," he said to the registrar, and then he turned to me. "I don't care about the wedding, Brendan. It's not the wedding that matters – all the stuff, the guests and the... the _I promise I'll always blah blah blah_... and the bloody flowers, and... I don't want all that, right. I just want to be married. That's all."

I stopped looking at Steven, and I looked at the registrar. I was going to ask her, _Can you do it_? Only, I couldn't speak.

:::::::

We had Leah and Lucas Christmas Eve. Steven hadn't been going to – he'd had them over Christmas last year, so it was Amy's turn – but now that he had someone who could drive them home instead of having to get buses and trains, he and Amy worked it out between them. They'd be with us Christmas Eve and for a couple of days leading up to it, and then we'd take them home in time for them to have dinner with their mum and granddad on Christmas Day.

I'd never seen Steven so happy: he seemed to have a smile on his face every time I looked at him, and all the stress that you hear about – over getting things done for the kids, the presents, the decorations, the shopping – all of that stress passed him by. Even working his shifts didn't faze him because I was there to take care of the kids while he was out and it was like... it was like they took to me, like they fell back into knowing that I was part of their dad's life, whatever else had gone on with them in the last three years. I think maybe I smiled as much as Steven did.

He got home Christmas Eve just in time to tuck them up in bed, and then he went for a shower and I got the kids' stockings out and hung them up, and I had a shock of déjà vu. Jesus, that Christmas Eve I'd been with him before – with him and that fragile little family of ours – came straight back to me, and I could feel the promise of it, the possibility that we'd felt that we just might be on the road to a future if we could outpace my father's shadow. I felt a kind of panic as those old fears rose up in me, and I guess it must have showed in my face because when Steven came back into the room he came straight to me.

"You okay, Bren?"

I held onto him, and the heat from the shower was in him as he hugged his arms around my neck, and he smelt _pure_, and I said, "Just remembering, that's all."

"Me too." He kissed the side of my neck. "No one's taking it away this time."

"No, they're not."

"Come on. You gonna help Santa out with his mince pie?"

"I'll go halves with you," I said. "Might help him out with his whiskey, though."

:::::::

I gave Amy's fella a hand swapping the kids' seats back over from my car to theirs when we took the kids up to Manchester on Christmas Day; then went inside. Steven was unwrapping a present from Amy, a sweater the colour of his eyes. Amy was holding a parcel he'd given her, it was a vase or something but anyway, he'd written on the tag – I saw him write it, his fingers bunched around a thick felt-tip pen, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth – _Happy Xmas Ames love from Brendan and Ste xxx_.

"Ta, Amy, this is mint," he said. "You gonna open yours?"

Amy read the tag , then she unwrapped her present.

"It's lovely," she said to Steven. "Must have cost a fortune. Thanks."

"It's our pleasure," I said.

She looked awkward, you might say.

"Sorry," she said to me. "We didn't... get anything for you."

"No worries." I touched the soft blue sweater in Steven's hands. "Maybe I'll take this off Steven sometime."

Steven blushed.

"So," Amy said, "I don't want to rush you, but we've got to get off to my dad's, so..."

"Right, well, we'll get off then," Steven said, "But... erm... we've got... Me and Brendan, we've got something we want to tell you, in't we?"

He looked at me, and I nodded. We hadn't told anyone yet, but we'd be telling my sons and my ex in the next couple of days, so it was only fair we told Steven's kids and his ex too.

"Okay," Amy said. "Sounds ominous."

"What?"

"Go on, Steven," I said.

"Right. Right, okay, it's just... Me and Brendan are gonna get married."

There was silence in the room. Amy's jaw dropped.

I wanted to laugh.

Then Lucas said, "Okay."

Then Leah shouted, "No!" and ran to her mother in tears.

Amy dropped to her knees and cuddled her and asked her what was wrong, what she was scared of, and as she asked the questions she was looking up at me like it was my fault, like Leah was scared of me, like I'd done something to her, like I was a man who would do something to an eight year old child.

Steven saw how Amy was looking at me, and he shook his head.

"Leah," he said, and he went to his daughter. "What's the matter, eh? Tell me what's the matter."

She turned to him and clung round his neck and he stood up with her in his arms.

"I don't want you to be asleep."

"What?" Steven asked.

"Your wedding," I said. "Your wedding to Douglas." I could see it as clearly as Leah could, Steven lying in that hospital bed, nobody knowing if he was ever going to wake up.

"Is that what you're..? No, Leah, that in't gonna happen again, alright? That was an accident, it dun't mean it's gonna happen again. Listen. Listen to me, okay? Me and Brendan, we're not gonna have a wedding like when that bad thing happened. It's not gonna be like that, I promise. We're just gonna go to a special office, right, and we're gonna write our names in a big book, and then when we come out of there we'll be married, but everything's gonna be the same, okay?"

Leah nodded her head. Steven stepped across the room to me, and he handed her to me, and she held on to me just like she'd held on to him.

"You okay now, princess?" I asked her. "Your daddy's with me now, and d'you know what that means?"

"No."

"It means he's protected. It means you all are – you, Lucas and your daddy. You're protected. I promise, okay?" I looked at Amy. "I promise."

:::::::

I went round to Eileen's mother's place on my own the day we arrived in Belfast. I'd called Eileen as soon as we got to our hotel, and when she said she didn't want Steven at the house I started arguing, but Steven was with me and he got the gist of what she was saying, and he mouthed to me, _It's okay_. I didn't like it, but he talked me down and called a cab for me.

My ex-mother-in-law looked at me like I was one of the Devil's own when she opened the door – no change there – but Eileen made an effort in front of our sons, let me kiss her on the cheek without recoiling. I was scared, see, and maybe she picked up on that and felt sorry for me, I don't know.

I don't know what I'd been expecting. I knew the boys would have changed, because even a few weeks makes a difference when you don't see your kids, let alone three years. And they had changed. Declan was as tall as me now, not a boy any more, and he had a way of looking at me that was like he was appraising me, but it wasn't hostile as far as I could tell. Padraig had changed even more. He'd gone from being a child to a teenager, and I guess those years were crucial ones because it felt like he didn't know me at all, and I didn't know him. His look was wary. It was no surprise; I'd barely seen him in the three years before I went away so him and me, we had even less to go on than me and Declan had.

We had a conversation, anyhow, about what they'd been doing, Declan's college, Padraig's school; what their Christmas had been like. Nothing that you might call contentious. Then I asked Eileen for a word, and I went with her out into the garden. It was freezing, but she wanted a cigarette.

"You didn't used to smoke," I said.

"They're not mine, they're our Annie's." She lit up and inhaled deeply. "She left left them behind when she went home, so."

Eileen already knew about the job I'd got coming up, and the treatment I'd had, so there wasn't much to tell her, but I asked her, "What do the boys know, Eileen? About what I went down for?"

She shrugged.

"They know what your Cheryl's told them about... you know... why it happened."

Fuck.

"What she say?"

"She said your dad was attacking someone, and you had to stop him. She said that's why it's manslaughter, not murder. I don't know what the truth is Brendan, I'm getting different stories left, right and centre. Was he attacking someone? Is that true, or is your sister just trying to make you a hero as usual?"

"It's... Yeah, it's true I guess."

"Who? Was it Cheryl he was attacking?" She waited for me to answer but I didn't. "Was it your fancy piece then, was your dad attacking him?"

"Jesus, it's... I just wanna leave it in the past, okay? It wasn't Steven, it wasn't Chez. It don't matter who it was, Eileen, it's over."

"Everything's so bloody cloak and dagger with you. I don't know why I'm surprised, mind."

"Give it a rest, will you?"

She dragged hard on her cigarette.

"So I take it he's come with you, then?"

"Steven? Yeah."

"Proper little cheerleader for you, he is. You should'a heard him on the phone, you'd think the sun shines out'a your arse."

"He's a good lad." I looked at the ground, and kicked a stone across the concrete path. "I'm marrying him, so."

"Mary, mother of God."

"Yeah, thought you'd be pleased."

"How long before you're cheating on him, I wonder."

"I won't."

"Are you forgetting the holy mess you made of our marriage, Bren?"

"This is different, Eileen. I... I love him, don't I."

She dropped her cigarette end and ground it with her foot.

"Words are easy, Bren. You used to say you loved me. Obviously that was one of your lies."

Her head was turned away from me, but there was hurt in her voice. I thought that would have been long gone.

"It wasn't a lie, sweetheart, course I loved you."

"But not how you love _him_."

"I'm gay, Eileen, what d'you want me to say?"

"I... God, I don't know. I just want... I just would like to think there was something that wasn't fake, you know?"

"The kids ain't fake, are they? Everything we went through – Niamh, the boys – that was real."

Eileen folded her arms tightly across her chest.

"I'm going inside."

"I can have the boys tomorrow, Eileen, yeah? Like you said I could."

"Yeah, if they want. They're settled though, Bren. They're happy. You do anything to change that and I'll have your balls."

:::::::

We were meeting them next day at this diner place, but Steven and I were running late so they were already there when we got there – all of them: Declan, Padraig, Cheryl and Nate. It was that weird time in between Christmas and New Year, when everyone's either on a sugar high or got the blues, but either way they want to get out of the house and so it looked like half of Belfast had the same idea as us. The place was packed out.

Cheryl waved when she saw us, and we squeezed our way through the tables to get to theirs. They'd commandeered a couple of extra chairs so six of us could sit around this table meant for four.

I'd missed Chez. I hadn't realised how much, and I think Steven had too going by the way he held on when she hugged him. And I was glad they were there, her and Nate. They knew the kids better than I did, and they kept the conversation going whenever I didn't know what the fuck to say. We ordered some beers for all of us except Padraig, and it got a bit easier after that, but I couldn't shake the feeling that these two lads had nothing to do with me and never would now. It was like Eileen had said, they were _settled_ and _happy_, and they were like that in spite of having me as a father, not because of. The time when they might have needed me had passed, and I'd blown it and there was no getting it back, and I couldn't blame them for showing no signs of wanting to try. Padraig barely knew me, but what he did know made him look at me – when he looked at me at all – with suspicion. And Declan knew too much: he had a whole list in his mind of times when I'd let him down, and where there used to be resentment, he now just seemed detached.

I had to try, just so Steven would see that I had.

"You still got that girlfriend of yours, Declan?" I asked. "Laura, is it?"

"That was when I was a kid, Dad."

He carried on talking to Steven. At least they liked each other. Padraig seemed to like Steven too, but then, Steven had an easy way of talking to kids.

"Deccy reckons he's playing the field," Padraig said, and everyone laughed.

"That's what worried me, when you was eyeing up my sister," Steven said to Declan.

"What?" I knew Declan had met one of the sisters when he'd met up with Steven last year, but I hadn't heard about this.

"Yeah," Declan said, and he grinned back at Steven. "Leela. She's lush."

"Jesus, Declan, she's your... she's practically your auntie. You don't think things like that about your aunties and uncles, it's... it ain't right."

"Tell that to Macca," Steven muttered. It was too quiet for anyone else to hear, but I still glared at him and he changed the subject. "What about you, Paddy, eh? You got a girlfriend yet?"

"Course he ain't," I said, "He's only – "

"Yeah he has," Declan cut in. "Melanie."

"Melanie, yeah?" I said to Padraig. "Good going there, son."

"You won't be saying that when our Leah brings a boyfriend home," Steven said.

"That ain't gonna happen, not for ten years at least."

"Four or five, more like."

"No. Four or five? No."

"Yeah," Cheryl said, "You've got to face facts, Bren. She'll be all grown up before you know it."

"Yeah, well, she ain't having no boyfriend, so."

"She will though, eventually, won't she," Steven said. "And then we'll have to just..."

"Reach an understanding?" Nate suggested.

"Okay," I said, "Here's an understanding for you. I understand what it's like being a teenage boy, and her _boyfriend_ can understand, if he touches her I'll rip his arms off."

"Sounds about right," said Steven, and he nudged me with his knee under the table, and I looked at him and he smiled.

"Get a room," Declan said, and then, "So is it true you're getting married, then? Mum said."

"What's this?" Cheryl asked. "Bren?"

"Yeah. We were gonna tell you..."

"Oh my god! That's amazing. When? Have you booked the venue yet? I bet you haven't, you're useless, the pair of you. I'll do it, I can book the venue and organise the – "

"Woah," Nate said. "Give them a chance, Cheryl. Brendan and Ste might not want a lot of fuss, might they, hm?"

I could have kissed him.

"Nathan's right," I said, but Cheryl was on a roll.

"But you'll still need invitations, and – "

"No, we won't, Chez," Steven told her, and he reached out and held her hand. "We in't having all that. No one's coming, right, it's what we want."

"But it's your wedding, you've got to..."

"They haven't got to do anything," Nate said. "Congratulations."

He shook both our hands, and then Cheryl stood up and leaned across the table to give us both a hug.

"You okay with this, yeah?" I asked the boys.

"Yeah, why not?" Declan said.

Padraig nodded. His eyes flicked to mine – I think it was the first time he'd made eye contact with me since I'd arrived in Belfast.

"Another drink, then, I think," Nate said. "Everyone want one?"

Everyone said yes.

"Not you, kid," I said. "You've had enough."

Steven turned to me with his usual pout.

"I've only had one," he said.

Jesus.

"Declan," I said. "I was talking to Declan."

"Oh."

"So," said Nate. "Who's having pudding?"

:::::::

Last time I'd said goodbye to Declan and Padraig, I'd got an assault case hanging over me and I didn't know if Steven would be waiting for me when I got back home. This time when I said goodbye to them – after we'd taken them shopping in the afternoon, let them choose their own Christmas presents, and they were heading back to their gran's – it had felt different. Utterly different.

Chez and Nate then headed off for their long drive home, and Steven and I went back to our hotel. We were flying home in the morning, and planned to go out somewhere for dinner tonight because the hotel didn't have a restaurant or room service – by the time we'd got around to looking for a place to stay, we hadn't been able to find anywhere nicer so we'd ended up at this place. It was okay, but it was the kind of anonymous business hotel I used to take him to back in the day, before I'd figured out that he deserved better. It was the kind of place I used to take other lads as well.

I had to go out to the shops – there was something I needed to collect, and I wanted to buy a packet of razors – and when I got back Steven was coming out of the bathroom. There was one thing this hotel had got right: nice bathrobes.

"Where you been?" he asked.

"Just down the shop."

"Right. Brendan, I'm sorry your kids weren't a bit more, y'know..."

"I'm thinking of getting rid of the beard. What d'you reckon?"

"But at least you're all talking now, in't you."

"I got these." I showed him the disposable razors I'd just bought. "But I better trim it first, y'know, or it'll take all night. Borrow your shaver, can I?"

"Yeah, if you want. It's gonna get better, Brendan. You'll see them again now that you've seen them once, won't you, and they'll, like, get used to you."

"Steven." I rested my hands on his shoulders. "It's okay, yeah? I'm okay. My kids, they're growing up without me but they're growing up fine."

"But you must want... I mean, if it was me, if it was my kids, I'd – "

"It's not, though. I'm not... I've never been my kids' father, not in the way you are to yours. Seamus made sure of that, and – "

"But you're a brilliant dad, though, Brendan. Leah and Lucas know it, and I know it, right?"

"That's what I'm saying. Your kids, they're my family now, they got nothing to do with where I came from. They weren't born to fix what was wrong in me." I tilted his chin up and made him look at me. "I got a second chance to be a dad, and if my first chance never comes right, I can live with that, okay? And that's thanks to you."

I wondered what he would think of me if I told him the truth: that I loved my kids but I loved his kids more, and I loved him more than all of them put together.

I kissed him. His lips were soft.

"Why d'you want to shave your beard off?" he asked, as if he'd only just registered what I'd said about it.

"Dunno. It's just..."

"You better not shave off your tache, though."

"Why not?"

"You can't!" He looked horrified. "That'd be well weird. What if I don't fancy you without it?"

"What, you just love me for me facial hair now?"

"Not just your facial hair, no," he said, and he looked up at me through his eyelashes.

"You're a fucking... sex kitten," I said.

"Give over."

"Where's your shaver? You even unpacked it?"

"Fuck off, I shave every day."

"Course you do."

He went to find it; it was still in his bag. I laughed and took it from him, and took my top off, and gave his backside a slap as I passed him on my way to the bathroom.

He followed me in when I'd almost finished trimming the beard down. He stood at my shoulder, and I looked at his reflection in the mirror as he saw all the tufts of dark hair in the white basin and wrinkled his nose.

"That's horrible, that," he said.

"Cheers."

"Here, you should'a done it outside so the birds could take it for their nests."

"It's December, Steven. They don't make nests in the winter. Am I gonna have to give you the birds and the bees talk now?"

"Very funny."

I gave him back his shaver, and squirted out a handful of shaving foam and slapped it on, then I rinsed out the sink and filled it with water. Steven wandered off, but next minute he was back with the chair from the desk in the bedroom. He wheeled it over and parked it sideways in front of the basin.

"What's this?"

"Sit down," he said. "I'm gonna do it for you."

I sat on the chair, and he straddled me and sat on my lap. He got one of the razors out of the pack, told me to hold still, and started to shave me.

I untied the belt of his bathrobe and it fell open.

"Jesus, Steven." I stroked his thighs.

"Look up or I can't do your neck."

"How can I look up, when you're..."

He laughed.

"Come on, head up, you pervert."

I dragged my gaze away from his dick to his face. He was concentrating, frowning as he worked, rinsing the razor in the sink now and again. The first one got blunt and he got a second one out.

I think he must have realised how intently I was staring at him, because he met my eyes and smiled, and kind of shook his head.

"You better get the moustache right. Don't wanna be lopsided now, do I."

He leaned back a little and I caught his waist to stop him tipping backwards.

"I'll make it proper symmetrical. Trust me."

He got to work again.

I worked my thumbs into the hollows of his groin, and he wriggled. My pants got tighter.

He told me it was done, and he reached for a towel and patted it over my face to get rid of the last of the foam, then I turned my head and looked in the mirror.

Brendan Brady looked back at me.

"Did a good job there, Steven."

"Ta." He kissed me.

"Just like old times, is it?"

"Better." He stroked his hands down my chest. "Err, you've got bits of beard in your chest hair."

I pulled his head towards me and kissed the crook of his neck, and I took his hand and put it at my crotch and he squeezed and rubbed me through the denim.

"Shower with me," I said.

"Just had one."

"Shower with me."

I pushed the robe off his shoulders and he shrugged it onto the floor. He unbuckled my belt. I stood up and lifted him up with me, and I carried him to the cubicle. I stripped off and got in with him.

The water started out freezing, and he yelped and we laughed, and it warmed up and so did we. His skin was slicked with soap in the steam, and I kissed the patch of hair in the centre of his chest that he left to grow these days, and then I kissed his mouth, and the water streamed down our faces and over our bodies, and I pushed him back against the tiles and gripped his cock and he gripped mine, and I dug my fingers into the flesh of his arse, and we kept pace with each other, slow then fast then crazy, and I looked down to watch my cum splatter onto his wrist and his belly, and when he came I caught his scream in my mouth, and then I caught him as he fell against me.

:::::::

"Brendan?"

We'd gone straight to bed when we got back to our room after dinner, too full to fuck so he'd sucked me off then I'd fingered him till he shook and spilled all over the hotel's sheets.

"Hm?"

"I was thinking," he said, and he turned to look at me, his head pillowed on my shoulder. "Are you gonna wear a ring?"

"Wore one last time, didn't I, and it meant fuck all, so."

"Me too. Don't even know where mine is."

"Dunno where mine is either."

"You sold yours."

"No I didn't."

"Yeah you did. You sold it to get money for your Declan to have that operation."

"Oh yeah." I'd forgotten that particular lie. "You're right, I sold it. No, I ain't gonna wear a ring this time, Steven."

"Me neither. Might get a new suit, though. I've only got ones I've had for court and funerals."

I laughed.

"Yeah, sounds like you need a new suit."

I kissed his hair, and he looked up at me.

"I'm glad the tache is back," he said, and he smiled, and I could feel him smiling still when I kissed him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Note** _This is the final chapter of this story. I've been touched by the reviews and comments, and they illustrate the love that continues for Brendan and Ste._

_Thank you for reading._

* * *

A week before they were going to get married, Cheryl phoned and spoke to Brendan.

"Hi babe," she said. "Just wanted to ask, you made your plans for after the wedding yet?"

"Other than having my wicked way with the blushing bride?"

"Shush! I mean, have you booked a honeymoon or anything?"

"Honeymoon?" Jesus. "No. Can't get away, gotta see my probation officer on the Monday, so."

"Can't you change it? If he knows you're getting married, surely he'll let you off this once."

"He already let me off the last one, Chez, when I went to Belfast. I can't ask again. Don't matter though, we'll probably get a hotel room for the night just to make it..."

"Special?"

"Yes. _Special_. Then just go home and – "

"That's so adorable, Bren. My big brother's special wedding night..."

"Come on, Chez. Jesus."

Cheryl laughed.

"Okay. Well, just don't book the hotel, okay? Not that you would, you useless great lump. Leave it to us, Bren. It'll be our wedding present."

"No, Chez, you don't have to – "

"No arguments. I know Ste wouldn't say no, so you're overruled."

:::::::

The day before they were going to get married, Brendan was woken by the sound of an alert on Ste's phone, and a moment later his own phone vibrated.

Ste was asleep on his front, his cheek resting on Brendan's outstretched arm, and as Brendan reached for his phone with his other hand, his movement disturbed Ste. Brendan watched him frown and close his mouth: Jesus, he even pouted in his sleep.

He checked his phone – it was an email from Cheryl. _Morning boys_, it said. _Here's your wedding present, with all our love, Nate and Chez xx_. He opened the attachment, and it was a booking confirmation for two nights – tomorrow and Sunday – at a country house hotel a few miles outside Chester.

Brendan called Cheryl's number. When she answered, he spoke quietly.

"Got your email, Chez. Thanks, yeah?"

"You like it?"

"Looks great, sis."

"Ste seen it? I sent it to him too. I hope he's okay with it, Nate's been there before and he says it's not all stuffed shirts..."

"He's still asleep. He'll love it though, he likes hotels." He paused as Ste shifted, stretched and opened his eyes. "Just talking about you."

"Who to?"

"To Chez. Check your phone, there'll be an email. Go on."

Ste picked up his phone and found the email.

"He got it?" Cheryl asked.

"Just looking now," Brendan said, and he watched Ste as he carefully read the details.

"We got you two nights, just so's they won't be hassling you to check out the morning after you've... you know. Has Ste read it now? Is he pleased?"

"Don't wanna rush him. But yeah, boy's got a smile on his face."

Ste read enough to realise what the wedding present was, and he leaned over and said into Brendan's phone, "Thanks, Chez. Love you."

Brendan held his phone out and they both heard Cheryl say, "Love you too babe. _Mwah_," and then Ste kissed Brendan's jaw and started to kiss his neck, so Brendan hastily ended the call and kissed him back. Then Ste lay in his arms and clicked the link to a page on the hotel's website.

"Looks well posh, dun't it. Look, is that our room?"

"Yeah, think so. It's a suite, it said in the booking thing."

"Is that like, a big room or what?"

"Ain't just a room, Steven, it's two rooms."

"Counting the bathroom, or..?"

"Not counting the bathroom."

"Mint." He looked at the details again. "It's got a... a something-something restaurant, and a spa, and a gym..."

"Yeah, don't think I'll be getting my exercise in the gym..."

Ste laughed.

"It's dead nice of Cheryl and Nate. Are we being mean, not asking them to the wedding?"

"Yeah, but Steven, if we asked them, we'd have to start asking your sisters, the kids, your dad..."

"No. I don't want it to be like... like, you know, all other people and that." He turned his head to look up at Brendan. "You don't either, do you?"

"Just us is good."

"Did I tell you, my dad said he wanted to get us a present? He asked what we wanted."

"Hope you told him not to."

"No. Why? So it's alright for Cheryl and Nate to get us something, but not my dad? Anyway I couldn't think of anything so I told him, booze."

"Okay. He know I drink whiskey?"

"Oi, selfish. It's gotta be something I drink, innit."

"What, cider? Price Slice lager?"

"Shut up. I in't a kid."

Brendan hooked his elbow around Ste's throat and kissed the top of his head.

"He can get you some Coca Cola for you to desecrate the whiskey with."

Ste laughed, and pulled the cover over his chest. The heating was on but it took a while to get going in the mornings.

"Just think, Brendan, next time we, like, _do it_, it's gonna be our wedding night." He looked around at Brendan again.

When Ste did what he was doing now – he was doing what was meant to be a seductive look, tongue between teeth, and a coy, come-hither voice to go with it – Brendan always wanted to laugh. It was when he wasn't aware of himself that Brendan felt the heat coming off him: when he was cooking, say, and his hands were skilled and he'd be going through a checklist in his head, nodding to himself as he counted off each task completed; when he was on his Xbox, all adrenaline and tunnel vision; at the end of a long day, when he'd either be tetchy or dead on his feet, a challenge or a pushover. When Brendan caught his eye and he'd smile, bright as light. Those were the times when it was impossible not to want him.

Not that Brendan didn't want him now.

"What, you on strike or something now? We got thirty-six hours to fill before our wedding night, sweet cheeks."

"Yeah, but we can't do it the night before though, can we," Ste said. "It's bad luck."

"Who says? Anyhow it's the morning now, it ain't the night, so."

Brendan was relieved that Ste hadn't reacted to what he'd called him. _Sweet cheeks_. Where the fuck had that come from? He didn't call him _sweet cheeks_. Calling him _sweet cheeks_ was not a _thing_. It was not a thing that Brendan did. Jesus.

"Did you just – ?" The penny had dropped, and Ste looked gleefully mischievous. "Brendan, did you just call me _sweet cheeks_?"

"What? No. No, course not." He'd have blushed if he'd known how.

"Yeah you did. You did!" Ste took hold of Brendan's chin and grinned into his face. "You called me _sweet cheeks_."

Brendan dashed Ste's hand away.

"Fuck off. I was just messing, wasn't I."

"No you wasn't. Aww. You're going soft, Brendan."

"Soft, am I?" Brendan slid his hand under the cover and gave his cock a few rapid strokes until he felt it stiffen, and then he grabbed Ste's hand and made him touch it. "That feel soft to you?"

"No." Ste kept hold of Brendan's cock, and kissed his mouth, then looked at him and smiled. "You still called me sweet cheeks though."

It wasn't hard to wrestle Ste until he was face down on the bed, even though he fought back. Brendan ended up holding him down with one hand between his shoulder blades.

"Yeah, so that's one sweet cheek," he said, and landed a stinging slap on Ste's left buttock. "And that's the other."

Ste screeched and struggled, and managed to twist out from under the weight of Brendan's hand on him, till he was on his back with Brendan kneeling beside him on the bed.

"Bastard," Ste said.

Brendan pulled his legs apart roughly and knelt between them, and captured his wrists and pinned them to the pillow. Ste was still smiling, but breathless now, and his eyes had darkened with hunger.

"That's a nice way to talk to your fiancé," Brendan said. He let go of one wrist so he had a hand free to bend Ste's leg up and rest his ankle on his shoulder, then he stroked his arse and felt for his hole.

"No, don't," Ste said.

Brendan stopped what he was doing.

"Don't what?"

"I don't wanna."

"Don't wanna what? Don't wanna fuck or don't wanna do anything?" This pre-wedding sex ban had come out of the blue.

"I just don't wanna be fucked or..."

"Or?"

"Fingered. Right, cos last night... It's alright for you, innit, you don't have to..."

"I don't have to what?"

"You know... get back to normal."

Right. Last night, Brendan had come hard into him, and had stayed buried in him balls-deep afterwards, with Ste held tight in his arms, his back against Brendan's belly. He was going to withdraw after a while, but when Ste had begun to get uncomfortable, and the discomfort had made him moan softly and shift his body, the moaning and the shifting had made Brendan hard again, and they'd fucked again, long and slow. It was understandable if a few hours later, Ste still felt stretched and sore.

"What d'you wanna do then, Steven?"

Ste stroked Brendan's chest with his freed hand; Brendan licked Ste's calf then shrugged his ankle off his shoulder and knelt back, releasing his other wrist.

"I'm cold," Ste said.

"Come here, then."

Brendan manoeuvred him until Ste was kneeling up in front of him. Ste circled his arms around Brendan's neck, and Brendan embraced him so they were pressed together from chests to knees, and rubbed his back and his bum. It was true, he was cold: Brendan could feel goosebumps on his skin.

They kissed. Ste's mouth was warm, and their tongues together felt to Brendan more intimate than the fact that they were naked on a bed.

"I love you," Ste said when he broke for breath.

"You're so fucking thin, Steven. Jesus, you're like you'd break."

"You only just noticed?" Ste scraped his teeth across Brendan's stubble.

"I'm just telling you." Brendan shivered as Ste tongued his ear.

"I in't gonna break. I would'a broke by now."

Brendan held his head in one hand and kissed him fiercely, and scored the fingers of his other hand down his vertebrae, and felt his cock swelling against the pressure of Ste's body.

"Fucking scrawny little..." He bit at Ste's arm as he clung to him. "Fucking little whore."

"Fuck you." Ste's head went back and Brendan licked his throat. "I love you."

"Love you too. Now, spit."

He put his hand in front of Ste's mouth and Ste obediently spat into it, and Brendan eased it between their bodies and began working first Ste's cock and then his own, and then got them both in his fist and jerked and rubbed and squeezed them together, his other hand in the small of Ste's back to stop him collapsing as he gasped – between kisses and bites – "Fuck. Fuck. Shit. _Bren_. Fuck. God. _God_."

:::::::

The afternoon of the day before they were going to get married, Amy rang Ste.

"You will phone the kids after school tonight, Ste, won't you?" she asked. "You won't forget?"

"Course I'll phone them. Why are you even saying that?"

"Because they're asking why you're not coming to get them for the weekend, that's why."

"You know why, Ames. _They_ know why. Look, right, you're not gonna make me feel guilty about this."

"About your own kids not being invited to your wedding? Yes, Steven, why would you feel guilty about that?"

Ste's hand tightened around his phone, and he shut his eyes and breathed and counted in his head, _One. Two. Three_...

"It's not a _wedding_ wedding, Amy, alright? We told you. No one's coming, it's just me and Brendan, and after that we'll be back to normal – "

"You're marrying Brendan Brady. It's never going to be normal."

"Don't, right. Amy, can't you just be happy for me? This is gonna happen whether you like it or not, right, so can you just..? Anyway you know our Leah was worried about me having a wedding after the last one, so it's just better if we do it our way. I'm right, Amy, you know I am."

There was a long pause, and then Amy said, "It would've been nice to be asked, that's all."

"You never even bothered to show up when I married Doug, but now you wanna come and watch me get married to a bloke you hate the guts of?"

"I'm not saying that."

"What are you saying, then, eh?"

"I'm saying... I'm just saying, I'm worried that this is going to be the start of you putting _him_ before our kids."

Breathe. _One. Two. Three. Four_...

"Brendan, Leah and Lucas are my family now." Ste paused. "Look, d'you want me to come up tomorrow, like, in the morning to see the kids? I've got time."

"Okay. They'd like that."

"Right. We'll see you tomorrow, then."

"We?"

"Yes. _We_."

:::::::

The evening of the day before they were going to get married, Ste pestered Brendan into packing ready for their hotel stay, in case they didn't have time tomorrow now that they were going to Manchester in the morning.

Their suits hung on the back of the bedroom door, Brendan's fresh from the dry cleaners, Ste's in the cover from the shop where they'd bought it. Brendan hadn't seen him in it – he'd only seen it on the hanger – but he had paid for it. He'd insisted on paying because Ste could never have afforded something so expensive, and Brendan wanted him to know how it felt to wear that kind of money: he deserved it.

While Ste finished packing, Brendan left to go and get the car filled up with petrol for the drive to Amy's. He'd had to park a few minutes' walk away because there'd been no spaces closer to the flat, and as he neared the car someone was approaching. They both stepped into the glow of the streetlamp at the same moment, and recognised each other.

"Alright, Brendan?" John Paul said. "I was just on my way to yours."

"To what do we owe this honour?" Brendan couldn't imagine why John Paul McQueen would be coming to see them. He barely knew him, and Ste didn't like him.

"I've got this for you. Well, you and Ste." He held up a bag. "It's from Danny, only he's tied up with admin at work so I said I'd bring it."

"Thought you school teachers knocked off at three."

"Yeah, and we put our feet up for twelve weeks a year. Mate, I'm just bringing round your wedding present, d'you want to take it or..?"

"Thanks," Brendan said. He ought to try to be civil; he had no beef of his own with this lad. Hadn't been a bad shag either, and he carried some sort of residual significance for Brendan as the last random he had ever hooked up with.

He took the bag and laid it on the back seat of the car.

"Right, well. You're welcome," John Paul said. "Good luck tomorrow, then." He turned and started walking back the way he had come.

Brendan opened the driver's door, and then he thought, better make an effort, if nothing else so that John Paul wouldn't go telling tales to Danny about the sociopath his son was marrying.

"D'you want a lift?" he called out. "Back to the school or somewhere?"

John Paul looked surprised as he came back towards Brendan.

"Cheers. No funny business, though, eh?"

He was joking, wasn't he? He was. He was joking, but still Brendan felt his hackles rise.

"Don't flatter yourself, son. I ain't picking up no more rough trade."

"_Son_? Wow." John Paul shook his head. "That's weirdly appropriate."

What the fuck? Why the fuck was he letting _rough trade_ go but picking up on _son_? The skin on Brendan's back prickled.

"Meaning?"

"You and me. Danny and Ste," John Paul said. "Wait – he still hasn't told you?"

John Paul was facing away from the streetlamp so his face was in darkness, but Brendan could make out the smug look on it, the _I know something you don't know_ expression, and he could see why Ste used to get into scraps with him.

"What? Told me what?"

Brendan's breath appeared like smoke in the cold air.

"How they met," said John Paul. "Ste and Danny."

"Yeah he has, yeah." Brendan racked his brain: had Ste told him? "Steven's dad... he came to find him, didn't he, when Pauline died."

"That's one way of putting it."

"What you getting at?" Brendan slammed the car door and stepped towards John Paul.

John Paul took a step backwards, but if he was wishing he hadn't got into this – whatever this was – it didn't stop his mouth.

"You're not the only one that liked to pick up – what was it? – Oh yeah, _rough trade_."

"The fuck are you saying, hm? Speak!"

"That's how they met, isn't it? Danny and your sweet little boyfriend. Danny picked him up."

Brendan lunged at him. John Paul shrank and shut his eyes, but all Brendan did to him was shove him out of the way.

He got into the car and as he started the engine, John Paul recovered his footing and banged on the window and shouted something, but Brendan couldn't hear what it was. All he could hear was the screaming inside his head.

:::::::

Ste had double checked that they'd packed everything they would need for the hotel stay. They wouldn't need to take anything to Manchester tomorrow because they'd only be gone for a few hours before coming home to get changed for the wedding.

Their bags were ready now, all except their washbags which would have to wait till tomorrow when they'd finished with their shaving stuff and toothbrushes, their hair stuff, their moisturisers.

The knocking on the door was frantic and made Ste jump. Someone was yelling, "Ste! You in there?" and when he opened the door, John Paul was on the step.

"What you doing here?"

"Brendan – "

"What d'you want Brendan for? He in't here."

"No. Brendan, he's... I think he's gone after Danny."

"What you on about? He's just gone out to get petrol, he's coming back in a minute."

Ste could see in the light that spilled outside from the hallway that John Paul was flushed and out of breath, like he'd been running.

"Please, Ste, you've got to – "

"Why would Brendan go after Danny?" He felt a sick feeling in his stomach. "What's happened? Tell me!"

"He knows about how you and Danny met, Ste, and I think he's gonna – "

"How? How does he know?" Ste was gripped by panic now.

"I... I told him. I ran into him just now, and I..."

"Why, John Paul? Why'd you have to tell him that? Are you stupid? I've got to phone him." Ste went inside, and John Paul followed him.

"I didn't mean to, okay, he was being a prick and I just... said it."

"You know what he's like though. If you've made him go and..." Ste was searching for his phone, randomly looking under piles of papers and behind cushions. "He's on probation. If he goes and..."

"He's gonna kill him, isn't he?"

"Course he's not gonna kill him. He wouldn't. He's got too much to lose now, he's..." Ste said, and maybe if he said it, it would be true. "Have you phoned Danny?"

"I tried but his phone's off."

"Try again. For fucksake, John Paul. Look, what did Brendan say exactly? Are you sure he's gone to find Danny?"

"I dunno." John Paul redialled Danny's number, and listened. "Voicemail again. When I said what I said, he just pushed me out the way."

"And what, you just stood there?"

"I tried telling him nothing happened, but he drove off."

"Why didn't you stop him?"

"Cos he's a psycho!"

"Oh, right." Ste snapped his words into John Paul's face. "But you've come round here cos you reckon I can stop the _psycho_, do you? How d'you figure that one out?"

"Because he's your psycho."

Ste elbowed him out of the way and went into the bedroom. There was his phone, on the bed, and he snatched it up and speed-dialled Brendan's number. As he listened to it ringing, he glanced at John Paul who was hovering in the doorway, and followed his eyeline to the unmade bed, and realised that the room smelt of sex.

The call went to voicemail.

"Brendan, can you ring me when you get this?" He glared at John Paul, who retreated, and Ste shut the door and continued quietly. "Right, nothing happened, okay? Nothing. He didn't know who I was, and... And if you touch him – if you hurt my dad, that's it. I swear down, if you hurt him, I'm gone."

He ended the call, wiped his eyes on his sleeve, grabbed his coat from the rack in the hallway and headed for the door.

"Danny was still at work when I left," John Paul said.

"Right, so maybe Brendan's tried looking for him at home first, yeah, so we'll get there before him."

"No, he knows he's at work, I... I told him."

They set off in the direction of the school.

"You're a fucking idiot, John Paul."

"_I'm_ an idiot? I'm not the one that's marrying a murderer."

Ste stopped in his tracks, grabbed John Paul and pushed him up against a parked van. Its alarm started sounding.

"This is your fault," Ste told him. "If Danny gets hurt... If I lose Brendan cos of this, it's all on you."

:::::::

Someone must have been on Brendan's side – God or the Devil, one or the other – because when he reached the school a car was driving out and he was able to drive in before the barrier closed, and then when he walked up to the main door, someone opened it to come out.

She looked startled to see anyone arriving there at this time in the evening.

"Oh," she said. "Can I help you?"

Brendan guessed she was a teacher.

"Got a meeting with Mr Lomax," Brendan said, and when the woman said nothing, he added, "About my lad."

"Ah, right. Do you know where you're going?" She held the door open for him. "His room's up the stairs here, second door on the right."

"Thank you."

Brendan smiled at her. It was disturbing how easy it still was to assume a mask that hid the turmoil inside him, and maybe the ability was too ingrained to ever be lost. He couldn't think about it now, though, and he ran up the stairs.

The room the teacher had directed him to was empty. Brendan started to search, opening doors, knocking on the locked ones, but the place was deserted. He went downstairs again, turned a corner, and Danny was there walking towards him.

"Brendan – what's..? Has something happened? Is Steven okay?"

There was concern written on his face, but it was fake, wasn't it?

"_Is Steven okay?_" Brendan echoed. "_Is Steven okay?_"

He grabbed Danny by the lapels of his jacket and sent him crashing against the lockers that lined the corridor.

"What the hell..?" Danny said.

"I know. I know what you did, Daniel. I know what you are, you're..." Brendan let go of him and took a step away. _Take a breath. And another, and another_. The voice of the anger management trainer was there suddenly, cutting through the other noises in his head. _Think about the consequences._

"Brendan, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't you? He's your _son_."

"I still don't – "

"Your boyfriend told me, okay? He told me what you did to Steven." He wanted a reaction, something, anything, but all he got was a look of confusion. "You picked him up. When you met him, you – "

"Oh, god. That was... I didn't know it was him. You do know that, don't you?"

Denial. Why would anyone disbelieve a man like him? Charm and power, and he'd think he could get away with anything.

"He's your son!" Brendan slammed his hand against the locker next to Danny's head, and the whole line of them rattled. "He's your son, and you took him and you – "

"Nothing happened. You think I'd – ? I would never, ever hurt Ste. I didn't know who he was. Neither of us knew, Brendan, it wasn't his fault either."

"His fault? Course it wasn't his fault! You're his fucking father." Brendan got hold of the front of Danny's collar, and pulled back his fist to punch him.

_Think about the consequences._

Somebody shouted his name.

It was Steven's voice, and Brendan turned and saw him running towards them, with John Paul behind him.

"Brendan, no. Get off him. Get off him!" He pulled at Brendan's hand where it gripped Danny's collar, and made him let go. "Get back. Back off, Brendan, I mean it."

Brendan looked at him for a moment, and then stepped back.

"Steven, what he did to you, I can't..."

"He's done nothing. Nothing happened, okay?" He turned to Danny. "Are you okay, did he..?"

"I'm fine. I tried to tell him, but..."

"He's a fucking mentalist," John Paul said.

"John Paul," Danny said, "Leave it."

"He's your dad, Steven."

"I know. It's okay." Ste stood in front of Brendan, and turned his head to say to Danny and John Paul, "Go, please."

Danny and John Paul headed off towards the main doors, and waited there.

"You should'a told me, Steven."

"There was nothing to tell. He found out who I was, right, before anything happened, so it was just... it was a mistake, that's all."

"That's all? He's your dad, for fucksake." Brendan started to go off towards where Danny was waiting, but Ste grabbed him back and Brendan said to him again, "He's your _dad_."

"Exactly." He took Brendan's face in his hands. "He's _my_ dad, Brendan. He's not Seamus. It's okay, right, he's not Seamus, is he?"

"No." Brendan shook his head.

"Come here." Ste kissed Brendan, then hugged his arms around him and held him. "Can we go home now please?"

:::::::

They hadn't talked it through. Maybe they should, but the things unsaid – the embedded horror that had set Brendan off; the secret that Ste had kept, and the fears that had made him keep it; how fragile their life together had suddenly seemed – hung so thickly in the air that they were no less obvious than if they'd said them out loud. What they were doing was, they were taking a breath.

They'd stopped on the way home from the school to get fish and chips. Ste had gone into the shop while Brendan waited in the car, and when he came back he started chattering away, and the smell of the chips came through their paper wrapping, and Brendan had complained that the car would smell like a chippy, and Ste had told him not to be a grumpy git. Pretending things were normal made them feel that they might be.

Brendan didn't think he'd be able to eat, but when Ste put his plate down in front of him he rested his hand on Brendan's shoulder for a moment, and he found his appetite. They drank tea with it: alcohol felt like a risk factor they didn't need.

Ste was in the shower when Brendan picked up his phone and saw that he had a voicemail. He called it up.

_Brendan, can you phone me when you get this? Right, nothing happened, okay? Nothing. He didn't know who I was, and... And if you touch him – if you hurt my dad, that's it. I swear down, if you hurt him, I'm gone._

When Ste came out of the bathroom, Brendan was standing in the kitchen.

"Steven, I'm gonna go now, okay?"

"What? No, what you on about? Go where?"

"Just to the other flat, okay, the one I'm renting. Just for tonight."

"I don't understand."

Ste looked frightened, and Brendan went to him and cradled his face in his hands.

"Hey, it's okay, Steven. You said yourself, it's unlucky to see each other before the wedding." He smiled. "Think we need all the luck we can get, don't you?"

"No, that's not why you're going, is it?"

"Is there anything you need from the bags? Cos I'm gonna take them in the car with me ready for tomorrow night."

"So you're coming to the wedding. You're not leaving me?"

"Steven." He kissed his forehead. "I would never, ever leave you. I promise you, okay?"

Ste held on to him, and Brendan enclosed him in his arms.

"What about Manchester though? We're going to see the kids aren't we?"

"I'm not. It's you they need to see. You can get the train up, yeah, like you used to? You've got time."

"Brendan – "

"And I'll be at the registry office. Five forty-five."

"They said be fifteen minutes before, didn't they."

"Five thirty, then." He prised Ste off him and gave him a kiss. "I'll be there."

He went and picked up the bags and his suit from the bedroom, and went to the door.

"Don't go," Ste said.

"Give Leah and Lucas my love, okay?"

"Please," Ste said, but Brendan had gone.

:::::::

It was the first time he'd slept alone since he came back for Ste four months ago, and he hadn't slept well. The nightmares were back, and although he couldn't remember when he woke up what the terror was that had haunted him, worse than the nightmares were the two words that echoed inside his head: _I'm gone_.

He'd known it was conditional: not Ste's love, but his staying. He had stayed this time, but if Brendan had thrown that punch that he'd stopped himself from throwing, or if he had happened upon Danny straight away instead of having time as he searched for him for his anger to cool – what if Ste had walked in at that moment? If that had happened, _I'm gone _would have been the consequence that the calm voice in Brendan's head had been promising him.

It hadn't happened, the violence or its consequence, but hearing in the voicemail the evidence of Ste's lack of belief in him had shaken Brendan. He understood it, and he wanted him to have this space to breathe and time to think, so that they would both know that if they went through with this wedding this evening, it would be with their eyes open; but it had wounded him.

He went to the gym in the morning and beat the hell out of the punching bag, and put himself through the kind of routine that made every muscle burn and emptied his head for the duration. Then he ran back to the flat, and then he phoned Ste.

It didn't ring but went straight to voicemail. Shit.

"Just wanted to... wanted to say I hope you're okay and the kids are okay and we're... I hope we're okay, Steven. Give me a call, yeah? And if I don't talk to you, I guess I'll see you later, so. Love you. See you later. Okay."

:::::::

"Brendan not with you?"

"No. Just me."

"Everything okay?" Amy asked.

"Course, yeah. It's just... it's unlucky, innit, seeing your... the person you're gonna marry, before you get to the wedding."

"Didn't know you were superstitious."

"Yeah, well, maybe Brendan is."

:::::::

Ste took the kids out for brunch.

"Have you married Brendan yet?" Leah asked.

"Not yet. I'm gonna go home this afternoon, and then I'm gonna go out, and then I'm gonna meet Brendan, and then by the time you go to bed, he's gonna be me husband."

"For ever?" Lucas asked.

"For ever and ever."

"I knew Brendan would come back, didn't I?" Leah said. "Like the ducks."

"Yeah, you did, sweetheart." Ste remembered in a rush how it had felt when he thought he had lost Brendan for ever. He got out his phone because he needed to tell him – he needed to tell him right now – that he loved him.

"Are you going to phone him?" Lucas asked.

"I can't. Look, the battery must'a run out."

"I wanted to talk to Brendan," Leah said.

"So did I." Ste felt a shiver of anxiety. "Shall we see if Mummy's got a charger at home I can borrow?"

"They've got iPhones," Lucas informed him. "The chargers won't fit a Nokia."

* * *

_Brendan_

My hands are cold when I'm getting dressed, so cold I can hardly do up the buttons on this white shirt. I don't know why. I've turned off the heating because I'm leaving soon, but it was on until five minutes ago and this bedroom's not got cold yet.

I persevere and I get it buttoned up, all the way to the collar because I'll be wearing a tie.

I haven't checked my phone since before I got in the shower, but I make myself wait until I've tucked my shirt into my trousers and buckled my belt and tied my laces and buttoned up my waistcoat. Then I pick up my phone, and there are no missed calls, and there's a text message but it's from Declan: _Good luck Ste n Dad ye heathens. Love Dec xx_.

I could cry. I won't, but I could.

I re-read the message Padraig sent this morning. _Have a good wedding_, it says. _Tell mum I can have a drink tonight ok. Jk :p_

I send Declan pretty much the same reply I sent to his brother. I thank him, and I say I'll call him tomorrow, and I tell him I miss him.

Time to go. I can't remember the last time I wore a tie but I make a good job of tying it, and as I tie it it occurs to me that it's both new and blue. The suit's old – old but good, charcoal grey and sharp as fuck – so all I'm missing is something borrowed. What am I, a fucking bride? Jesus.

I put on the jacket, check myself in the mirror and go.

It's dark outside, not just because it's the dead of winter but because the sky is heavy with clouds, and as I walk to the car a few drops of freezing rain begin to fall.

People are coming out of the registry office building when I arrive. The wedding before ours must have finished early because it's five thirty exactly when I get there. A car leaves, so I pull into the space it's vacated, and I get out and go up the stone steps and squeeze past the small crowd of happy people to get inside out of the rain, which is falling heavily now. I'm met by this young girl administrator and show her our ID. No, Mr Hay is not here yet. Yes, when Mr Hay arrives I'll be sure and tell him he needs to check in with her for the pre-wedding formalities.

If Mr Hay ever fucking gets here. It's twenty to six now, and the last few of the last lot are hanging around hoping for the rain to stop, I guess, but I'm very much alone. The administrator comes up to me again.

"Any luck yet?" she asks.

"Not yet."

"And your witnesses... they on their way?"

Witnesses. Fuck.

"You can do the witnessing, yeah?" I say to her.

"No, it's against the regulations. No one here can do it. It's in the leaflet you'll have been given when you met the registrar: you need to bring two witnesses."

Who reads fucking leaflets? Jesus. Anyhow it's all academic if I've got nobody to fucking marry.

The heavy wooden door opens, and I think, _Please God let it be Steven_, but it's not. It's my sister.

"Sorry, Bren. Don't be mad, okay, but I couldn't stay away, could I?"

I grab her and kiss her.

"Nathan with you?"

"No. I thought I'd be pushing my luck with you showing up on my own, let alone the two of us."

"How'd you get here then? Taxi?"

"Yes. Where's Ste, Brendan?"

"Running late. The driver still here?" I dash to the door.

"No, Bren, he drove off. Why?"

"Need witnesses, don't we. You're one, okay, but we need two."

"Oh. Okay. What about those people?"

We look at the stragglers from the previous wedding.

"Dunno," I say.

"I'll go and ask."

She walks over to them, and comes back with a priest. Seriously.

"Brendan Brady," I say, and I shake his hand.

"This is Father Gordon," Cheryl says, and then to him, "You'll meet Ste in a minute, when he gets here."

I can almost hear the word _he_ resounding in the priest's head.

"You okay with that, Father?" I say, and I'm thinking this is all I need, a side order of Catholic judgement to go with my not-happening wedding.

"I'm not here in my official capacity, son. Of course I'm okay with it."

I nod my head, and I think, _Thank you_.

He goes and sits down. The other guests go. The registrar comes out; she's obviously been filled in on my no-show fiancé, because she asks, "How are we doing? Any news?"

"Sorry," I say. "Must be caught in traffic."

"We're getting quite tight for time. And I haven't had any discussion with you about the wording for today."

"Just... the legal stuff. Whatever you have to say, yeah, that's all we need."

"Alright. Any preference who goes first?"

"No." What does it matter, if he's not here?

"Alphabetical order, then. Right, well, give us a shout when he gets here."

She and the admin girl go off back into the office.

"He ain't coming." I don't know if I'm talking to myself or to my sister.

"What?" Cheryl is looking at her reflection in the window to tidy her hairdo. "Bloody wind."

"He ain't coming," I say again. I feel hollow.

"Who? Who's not coming?"

"Who d'you think? Should'a been here by now, shouldn't he. He ain't coming. Little..." The little bastard has done it again. I'm suddenly thinking back to – what was it? – three and a half years ago now. Promises he made: me over Douglas if I signed over the deli to him, and I did it, and the joke was on me, and here I am again and I've let my guard down again, and he's made a fool of me again. Fucking little bastard.

"You talking about _Ste_?"

"Steven. Yeah."

Cheryl grabs my arm and steers me into the corner out of earshot of Father Gordon.

"For god's sake, Brendan, don't talk daft. Why wouldn't he come?"

"Dunno. Cos... How do I know what goes on in his head, huh? I dunno, maybe he... maybe he's punishing me, you know? Maybe it's revenge, yeah, and all of this, it's been – "

"Punishing you for what? Oh, Bren, what have you done now? You haven't..?"

"I've done nothing, Chez. Jesus."

I can't believe she thinks I've hit him. It was his dad I went for, not him, and I didn't even... _Fuck_. My tie is tight round my throat like a noose, and I try to untie it but the knot just gets tighter. I manage it in the end and take it off, and undo the top two buttons of my shirt. I guess I'm annoying Cheryl with what I'm doing, twisting the tie around my hand, because she tuts at me and she says, "Give it here, for god's sake Bren," and I hand it over and she stashes it in her handbag. Then she suggests I give Steven a call.

"And say what?" I ask, because I phoned him this morning and he hasn't phoned me back. "Let's go, Chez, I ain't standing here waiting if he's – "

"Look." Cheryl touches my arm.

There's a car pulling up outside. We can't see out of the windows of the building but there's a glare of headlamps then it goes dark again. I stride over to the front door and go outside. It's pissing with rain now, and the wind is gusting, and out there in the dark I see Steven.

I run down, sliding on the wet steps.

"Where the fuck were you?" I shove him in the chest and he staggers back. "Where the fuck have you been?"

He's right back at me, in my face: "There was no trains, Brendan. A breakdown or something. I had to get the bus from Manchester, right, and it took bloody hours."

"I thought you weren't gonna come." I'm shouting over the noise of this weather.

"Why wouldn't I come?" he shouts back.

"Because I... Because you said. You said if I... You said – "

"I said what?"

"Your voicemail, okay? _I'm gone_, that's what you said."

"Fucksake, Brendan."

"Well? Were you really gonna leave me? Were you?"

"Are you stupid? I'm never gonna leave you. Don't you know that by now?" His hair is getting plastered to his head, and I register that he's wearing trackies and a hoodie. "You can do anything. You can batter the people I love. You can..." And his next words assault me like a punch: "You can batter me, right, and I won't leave."

"Steven – "

"And d'you know what that means, Bren, do you?"

"No."

"It means you won't ever do it. I know you won't."

"I won't."

"I know. Because I love you, and you love me, and if you did it, you would have to look at me every single day for the rest of your life, knowing that you'd broke my heart. And that would kill you. And that's how I know, Brendan, okay? That's how I know you'll never do it again."

"That's fucked up."

"I know," he says, and then he's kissing me, and his lips are cold and I can taste the rain on him, and I'm holding him tight enough to crush his bones, and he feels like nothing in my arms, and he feels like everything.

"We gonna do this, then?" I ask.

"Yes," he says, and I grab his hand, and we run together up the steps.

Cheryl's holding the door, and she turns round to someone inside and she says, "They're coming. They're coming."

The registrar meets us, checks that Steven matches his ID, then we go into the room. Cheryl sits down with Father Gordon, and Steven and I stand at the table across from the registrar.

"Is that a vicar?" Steven whispers to me about the priest.

"Just a witness, don't worry."

He nods as if to say, _Whatever_.

"Are we ready?" The registrar smiles as if she marries a pair as disastrous as us every day of the week.

"Yes," we both say.

I realise I'm still holding his hand when he squeezes mine.

It starts.

"Are you, Brendan Seamus Brady, free lawfully to marry Steven Hay?"

"Yeah. Yes. I am, I do, yeah," I say to her.

"_I am_ is fine," she says.

"I am."

I turn and look at Steven, and he's looking at me. There's a strand of hair stuck to his forehead and I let go of his hand and stroke it back with my finger tips.

"Are you, Steven Hay, free lawfully to marry Brendan Seamus Brady?"

He's looking at her, and he doesn't say anything for the longest time, and I realise it's because he's waiting to make sure she's finished her question. She gives him a nod.

"I am," he says.

"Congratulations, Brendan and Steven. You are now – " And by the time she says, "Married," I'm kissing him, and his arms are twined around my neck, and the kiss becomes a hug and I say into the cool damp skin in the crook of his neck, "I love you. I love you. I love you."

His breath is hot in my ear as he says, "I love you too."

They rush us through the formalities. When we sit to sign the register, I go first and then when I look at him as I pass him the pen, I don't think I've ever seen him look so happy. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look so happy.

When we go outside, the rain has stopped and the sky has cleared. It's colder, but we can see stars now.

Father Gordon shakes both our hands and glows a bit when Cheryl gives him a kiss, then he gets in his car and drives off.

"Can we drop you somewhere?" I ask my sister. "Back to Nate's mum's? It's on our way."

"Thanks, love."

We turn to where I'm parked, and my car is blocked in by a Volvo parked across it at an angle.

"What the..?"

"I'll move it," Steven says.

"What?"

"I left it there, I'll move it."

"Steven?"

"I borrowed it, right, it's no big deal."

"Borrowed it? Who do you know that's got a Volvo?" I look at him but he's not talking. "Steven, who'd you borrow it from?"

"Dunno. One of your neighbours." He stops, but when Cheryl and I are incapable of speech, he's forced to go on, defensive. "I was late, right. I thought it was quicker if I went to your flat so we could come here together, but I was too late, wasn't I. You'd already gone. And I couldn't phone a taxi, cos my phone charger's in my bag in your fucking car."

I swipe a slap round the back of his head and I tell him, "Watch your mouth."

"Oi, you swear all the time," he says, and he rubs his head and he's all resentment and attitude and he looks sixteen not twenty-six, and I remember it's his birthday.

"Not in front of my sister, I don't," I tell him.

Cheryl gives me her best _I can't believe you just did that_ look, and then she says to Steven, "So you couldn't phone for a cab. And then what?"

"If I'd waited for a bus I never would'a got here. So I... I borrowed that car."

I stare at him.

"So these neighbours of mine, they just said, _Any friend of Brady's is a friend of ours, here's the keys to our thirty grand car_?"

"No. They... I saw them, they got their kids out and then when they went in their house they... I s'pose cos it was raining they was rushing, and they... they left the car door open and the keys were in it."

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I've married a joyrider."

"I had to get here, didn't I?"

"Okay love," Cheryl says. "Bren, what are we gonna do?"

"I'll take it back, alright?" Steven says.

"No, I will," I tell them.

"You can't," he says. "You're on probation, what if you get stopped?"

"And you ain't even got a licence. No offence, Steven, but who's more likely to get stopped driving a car like that, hm? Me, or a council rat in a hoodie?"

He scowls at me (again) but then a memory sparks in both of us, and he sort of half smiles, and I shake my head.

"What d'you want me to do, Bren?" Cheryl asks.

I give her my car keys.

"Take my car, and take the boy. I'll see you at the hotel, okay?"

"Okay. Be careful," she says. "Come on, Ste, love, let's get you home and get some dry clothes on you."

"Which neighbours?" I ask Steven.

"The house before the corner. Got a black door."

Steven fishes in his pocket and brings out the keys to the stolen car and gives them to me.

As I'm getting into it, I say to Cheryl, "For chrissake don't let him... I dunno... set fire to anything. See you later."

Jesus.

:::::::

_Loneliness can lock you up  
Like prison walls around your heart  
You waste away, you fall apart _

It's an impressive hotel. Not that my priority is appreciating the architecture right now. My priority is getting a drink, and I'm sat on a stool at the bar.

_Your eyes reveal that maybe we should try  
The walls won't come down unless you open fire  
We gotta make a move 'cause you can't deny it, baby_

I've taken the car back. I parked it in a space just out of sight of the owners' house, then I looked in the glove compartment and found some wipes – I knew there'd be wipes, there were two child seats in the back – and wiped down anything Steven or I might have touched. Left a couple of twenties in the footwell by way of compensation. Wiped off the door handle when I got out, and then I walked up to the house in question and put the car keys through the letter box, and then I ran away like a kid playing Knock Down Ginger.

I went to my flat then and hung up my suit jacket in the bathroom so the steam would help the creases drop out, and I took another shower. I put on a fresh shirt, put the suit back on – no tie this time – and called a cab to take me to the hotel.

"What's this?" I ask the barman about the music when he puts my whiskey down in front of me. "Sixties night?"

"No, not really. I've got a Dusty playlist," he says, and indicates the iPod dock behind the bar. "I always put it on when we've got two gentlemen in on their honeymoon. Usually goes down well. I can change it if you like."

Jesus.

"No. It's fine."

"It's available in the rooms too, just select the list."

I get out my phone and I call Cheryl's number. Steven answers: thank Christ for that, it means Cheryl's doing the driving.

"I'm at the hotel," I tell him. "In the bar."

"Didn't get arrested, then," he says icily.

"Evidently."

"We'll be there in... five? Yeah, Chez says five minutes."

"Okay."

_Dear Lord above  
I swear that I  
I will never love again  
Unless I'm loving him _

I swallow my drink and ask for another.

The bar's busy. Mostly hotel residents, I guess, as it's too much of an out-of-the-way place for passing trade. The restaurant's through the double doors at the end, and we've got a reservation courtesy of Cheryl and Nate.

It's maybe ten minutes later when my sister walks in through the door from the lobby. I hug her and kiss her, and she hops up on the seat next to mine.

"Ste's just out in the reception phoning his kids," she says. "You're not cross with him, are you, Bren? He's worried, poor lamb."

I shake my head and close my eyes for a moment.

"Why would I be cross, hm?"

"Good, cos here he is."

I swear it's not just me that stares at him. I swear it's everyone. I swear the whole fucking bar has gone silent like someone's hit the mute button.

He stands for a moment in the doorway scanning the room before he sees us.

_Model fit_, the fella in the shop had said after Steven tried on two suits that didn't do him justice. _We've got this one that's model fit_. And I asked what the fuck _model fit_ was, and the fella said, _Also known as skinny fit_, and Steven had pouted but he'd tried it on anyway and when he'd changed back into his trackies and come out of the changing room, he looked pleased as punch and let me hand over my credit card. And now here he is in it, and he takes my breath away.

The suit is jet black, and it fits him like it was made for him. The jacket is done up, single-breasted, two buttons, and it stops just short of his hip joints and then he's all legs in the flat-fronted pants. His shirt is white. His tie is pink.

I stand up and walk towards him, and he walks towards me, and there's no one else.

_Take the sun and take the moon  
And stars that shine so bright  
All I need is my guy  
And everything's alright _

We both stop.

"Thought I might as well wear it," he says.

I don't touch him; I just very lightly kiss him on the cheek. He smells fresh from the shower.

"You look grand, Steven."

We walk back to Cheryl. The barman is opening a bottle of Champagne.

"Nate's just rang," Steven tells her as he hands her phone back to her. "He'll be here in a minute."

"See," she says, "I won't be staying to cramp your style."

"You'll have a glass though, yeah?"

I nod to the barman and he pours a third glassful.

"Oh, mustn't forget to give you these," Cheryl says and hands me my car keys.

"Cheers."

When Nate arrives he congratulates us warmly. He doesn't stop for a drink, but takes Cheryl off back to his mother's place where they're staying for the weekend. Then the next minute, we're told our table is ready when we are.

"We'll take your Champagne through for you," the barman says.

I tip him.

"Just gotta get something from the car," I tell Steven. "I'll see you in there."

"They've took our bags up already."

"Okay. Back in a minute."

I find out where my car is parked and I fetch something out of the glove compartment and put it in my pocket, then I go back inside and join Steven at our table.

"Thought you'd done a runner," he says.

"Would'a done, only I been drinking, so."

_I can hardly wait to hold you  
Feel my arms around you  
How long I have waited  
Waited just to love you_

I lean over the table and I kiss his mouth, then I get the thing from the car out of my pocket and slide it across the table cloth to him.

"What's that?" he asks.

"Birthday present. Open it, then."

He looks at me with surprised eyes, then lifts the lid off the small black box and takes out what's in it. It's a solid, heavy silver cuff bracelet.

"Brendan. I weren't expecting..."

"Got it when we were in Belfast. Like it?"

"It's amazing."

_Now that I have found you  
Don't ever go _

I take it from him and open it, then snap it closed around his wrist.

We order our dinner. I have the steak; Steven has whatever the fuck he wants.

:::::::

I slide the keycard into the reader, and the lock clicks open. He pushes the door, and then he turns to me and we kiss, and I lift him into my arms, and his limbs cling around me and I carry him into our suite, through the lounge into the bedroom, and I fall with him onto the bed, and we kiss again, and we kiss and we kiss. He tastes of _tarte au citron_.

"Need the bog," he says – you can take the boy out of the council estate, but you can't take the council estate out of the boy – and off he goes.

While he's gone I fiddle with the player on the bedroom telly and find the Dusty Springfield playlist from before. So I'm gay: get over it. Then I hunt through our bags for the bottle of lube and throw it onto the bed.

"Alright?" I say when he comes back into the room.

"Yeah. Bathroom's mint." He disappears again, back through the open door into the lounge this time, and I hear a shout. "There's an Xbox!"

"Seriously, Steven?" I stand in the doorway and he turns and looks at me and laughs.

"I might want something to do, like, after I've wore you out," he says, and he takes off his jacket and comes to me.

We undress each other. The feel of his skin under my palms makes me shiver, and he gets to work unbuttoning, unbuckling, unzipping me, and already his lip is red where I've bitten it, and I suck the bruise my teeth made on his shoulder yesterday morning. The breath catches in his throat as my hands slide inside the back of his boxers and my fingers gouge into his cheeks.

_Go easy on me, baby, not too rough  
If this is right, there's no need to rush _

I step back and look at him. His trousers are round his thighs – they're too tight to fall all the way down – so he sits on the bed and pulls them off. One sock comes with them, one stays on. I stand between his knees and take his face in my hands and kiss him.

_Oh, go easy on me, like walking on ice  
Cos for ever happens once not twice _

"We did it, Steven, didn't we? We did it right this time, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"And this time it's... it's..."

"Yeah. Yeah, it is."

I finish undressing down to my boxers, and he pushes the cover back and gets under it and holds it up for me to get in, but instead I get hold of his foot and pull the sock off and throw it aside, and then I bite his toes. He struggles and screeches but I'm not letting go, and when he tells me to stop because it tickles, I dig my thumbs into his sole and he yelps with pain.

"What's the matter now? That didn't tickle, did it?"

"I hate you."

I drop his foot and clamber over him and kiss his sulking mouth. He makes me wait a few seconds before he kisses me back, and then I kiss his jawline and down his throat and give his jutting collar bone a bite. His nipples are hard when I get to them, and he moans when I tug at them with my teeth, one then the other, and I bite too hard on the second one so he pushes me off, and when I go to give it an apologetic lick he's scared it's going to be another bite and I feel his body tense. I don't bite him. I move on, licking a line down his stomach, and the tension leaves him, and I run my tongue horizontally above the waistband of his boxers, and I kiss his crappy tattoo. And then I lick where the cotton of his boxers stretches taut over the curve of his dick, and it makes him squirm, and he holds my head there so I give him the attention he wants.

I get off him and pull his underwear off and drop it on the floor, then I do the same with my own. There are discarded clothes everywhere.

"You'll have to pick them up in the morning," I say as I get into bed.

"You will, you mean."

"Why would I do the clearing up, now I got a wife to do it for me?"

"Fuck off, I in't your wife."

"You must be, cos I ain't yours, so."

He opens his mouth to argue, then he realises I'm joking.

"Very funny," he says.

"Yeah. You ain't my wife, you're just a lazy..." I kiss him. "... Little... fucker."

It has the desired effect. He pushes me onto my back and climbs astride my thighs, and he grabs my cock none too gently, and he says, "Lazy, am I?" and he slaps a load of lube onto me and looks me in the eyes as he reaches back to smear it onto himself. He knows what that does to me, and I don't know if he's slipping in a finger or he's faking it, but the way he winces – real or for my benefit – makes me throb.

He leans to kiss me, and then he shuffles forward on his knees to get in position, and he holds my cock and finds his hole with the head of it, and I can feel him opening, and he steadies himself with a hand on my stomach and he forces himself down till I enter him, and then he leans back a little and slides himself gradually until I'm all the way inside him.

He's tight and he's hot, and his hips move like a dancer, and he's making himself cry out, and I grip his thighs and feel the rough hairs on them getting damp with my sweat.

"Lean back," I tell him. "No, right back."

I hold his wrists and he lets me take his weight as he falls backwards until he's almost lying on my legs, his back arched, his stomach stretched to a smooth arc. He's come off me a bit because of the angle he's at now, and I look, and I can see his hole straining around me. It looks pink and engorged, and my cock looks huge as it penetrates him, and he moves so I go deeper, and his balls look dark and heavy and his cock points at the ceiling. Jesus. Jesus Christ.

I pull him up by his wrists and he sits down so hard that we both cry out.

"Had a good look, did you?" he says. "You pervert." And I take his cock in my hands and clumsily jerk him off as he rides me till I come jaggedly into him and he spills over me. He lifts himself off and I fall out of him, and I pull him down, and he licks his cum from my chest.

:::::::

We get up and open the Champagne that was waiting in a bucket of ice in our lounge when we arrived. The ice has melted. We drink a glass then take the bottle back to bed, and drink, and fuck, and drink, and put the music back on.

_I've made up my mind that you're gonna love me  
I've made in my heart a soft place for you _

Steven falls asleep in my arms, and I look at him in the flickering light from the TV screen. In sleep all his sharpness blurs somehow, and he's all softness. I kiss his hair.

Later when I come back from the bathroom – and he's right, it's mint – he's sitting on the bed with his silver bracelet in his hands.

"I never noticed, Bren, it's got writing in it."

"Engraving, yeah."

"What does it say? I can't read it, it's... Is it Irish?"

"Yeah. It says _Stiofán_," I tell him. "_B__e__idh grá agam daoibh go deo. Breand__á__n_."

"It sounds nice when you say it. What does it mean? I get the _Steven_ and _Brendan_ bit."

"It means for ever, Steven. It means I'm gonna love you for ever."

He smiles up at me, and locks the cuff closed on his wrist again.

"Sounds promising," he says.


End file.
